Global levels of hunger remain stagnant at the highest rates seen in over a decade, as one in 11 people worldwide (8.9%) faced hunger, or undernourishment, in 2023, according to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition (SOFI) report, released on Wednesday.

The report, a collaboration between the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization, summarizes the lackluster progress made toward the second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG2): “No Hunger.”

In 2023, nearly one-third (28.9%) of the global population was food insecure, lacking regular access to adequate food. A third of the world’s people ran out of food at certain times during the year, and went an entire day or more without eating, the report found.

That’s in comparison to 21.5% of people facing moderate or severe food insecurity in 2015, when the Sustainable Development Goals were first adopted.  

That growing number is a combined result of climate change, regional conflicts, economic downturns, and other destabilizing factors, found in many low- and middle-income countries. Amongst the countries with high levels of food insecurity,  74% were affected by one or more such drivers.

“Hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition remain a global crisis,” said Antonio Guterres, United Nations’ Secretary-General, during the report launch at the G20 meeting in Brazil on Wednesday. But “we can solve this crisis and finance is the key.”

Progress made towards eradicating hunger, made in the years of the Millennium Development Goals, slumped in 2015 – paradoxically that was the same year that the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG2, No Hunger, was adopted. Hunger rates climbed even higher during the COVID pandemic, remaining stagnant ever since. 

Overall, estimated 713-757 million people are hungry or “undernourished” – defined as habitually consuming insufficient food to provide energy levels needed for a normal active and healthy life, according to the SOFI report. 

And in Africa, the number of people who are chronically undernourished rose in 2023 to 20.4% of the continent’s population. In Asia, levels of hunger remained unchanged (8%), while hunger levels in Latin America and the Caribbean declined somewhat to (6%).

Most countries off track in reaching SDG nutrition goals as well

In terms of seven nutrition goals that are also asociated with the SDG2, there has been some moderate progress on infants and children – even though most countries remain off track with respect to the goals overall.

Rates of stunting and wasting (one indicator of progress for SDG 2.2) – which means children failing to reach their height or muscle volume – declined among children younger than five years old over the last decade.

Similarly, progress has been made in exclusive breastfeeding of infants under six months of age: a practice long-recommended by the WHO because of its beneficial effects for mother and child health. 

In 2022, 48% of infants under the age of six months were exclusively breast fed only, as compared to 37.1% in 2012. 

The improved numbers are “showing that investments in maternal and child nutrition pay off,” stated Catherine Russell, the Executive Director of UNICEF, noting that the economic benefits of breastfeeding support programmes are just as large as health-related ones, with $35 return of every dollar invested.

Healthy diet unaffordable for a third of the world’s population

For children as well as adults, an adequate caloric intake still does not equal good nutrition. More than a third of the world’s population, 2.8 billion people, could not afford a healthy diet in 2022, falling back to pre-pandemic levels. In low-income countries, the rate of “malnutrition” was as high as 71.5%. 

Rising rates of obesity, often coexisting with under-nourishment, constitute a double burden for national health systems. “This is a […] cost for the society because overweight and obesity will create non-communicable diseases that will affect our finances: we will spend significantly more on health,” said Maximo Torero, FAO’s Chief Economist, at the report’s launch Wednesday.

Healthy, nutritious food is often unavailable locally or may be unaffordable because of income inequalities. Should nothing change, 582 million people are projected to be chronically undernourished at the end of the decade, the SOFI report warns.

“We’re standing still,” said FAO’s Director-General, Qu Dongyu, during the report launch. A “real change of agrifood systems is the only way to address the major drivers of food insecurity.” Climate change, conflicts and other factors make agriculture more unpredictable, highlighting the need to build more resilient farming systems. “I appeal to donors and other international partners to be more risk-tolerant,” Dongyu continued. “We need to be ready for the unforeseen.”

Shift in the financing of agrifood systems needed to end hunger ‘in our lifetime’                                                        

Between 2005 and 2014, steady progress was made in reducing hunger – from 12.2% to 7.3% of the global population. Then, from 2015 to 2019, hunger levels fluctuated only slightly between 7.7% and 7.5% of the global population – rising sharply at the start of the pandemic and still remaining higher than any time since 2008. 

Yet, agencies involved in making the report remain optimistic about reaching the SDG goals. 

“The elimination of hunger and malnutrition is not just a vague ambition,” but rather “something that can be achieved absolutely in our lifetime,” said Francesco Branca, WHO Director Nutrition and Food Safety Department, during a press conference Monday.

What’s needed to eliminate hunger is “a shift in the way we are financing Food Security and Nutrition,” said Sara Savastano, Director of IFAD’s Research and Impact Assessment Division. More long-term projects which look at food security more holistically, beyond sector boundaries are necessary to address the core drivers of the crisis instead of simply applying bandaids to crises, she said.

Consensus on such shared financial goals is needed so as to better use existing funds, SOFI’s authors emphasized at an earlier, pre-launch briefing on 18 July, on the sidelines of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) High-Level Political Forum in New York City.

New UN Report Calls for Fresh Approach to Ending Food Insecurity and Hunger

Expand scope of food security investments 

To quantify and evaluate the programmes aimed at enhancing food security, the SOFI report says that aid and investments in food security needs to move beyond consumer-based food supports, to agri-food systems. 

Financial resources need to be “directed towards strengthening the resilience of agrifood systems to the major drivers and underlying structural factors of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition,” the report states.

And for that to happen, a more coherent definition of a food security investments, as well as an overarching strategy, needs to be articulated for reaching the “no hunger” goal.

“Right now it’s impossible to determine how much financing is going to end hunger and malnutrition,” said Saskia Depee, Senior Nutrition Advisor at the WFP during a press briefing Monday, just just before the report’s release. 

But policies and interventions needed to end hunger and malnutrition could amount to several trillion US dollars over many years, experts agree.

“Nutrition and food security, and especially nutrition, are long term behavioral changes… requiring time and investment,” Sevastano said. 

Supporting small holder farmers 

Much more funding needs to be invested in strengthening agrifood systems, which are ultimately responsible for food production, the report’s authors agree.

“The world of agrifood systems … is where most hunger is, [it is also] …a world that will be facing uncertainties because of climate change,” highlighted Torero. Donors also need to accept uncertainty in food security investments, counting on the significant benefits in case of success.

As part of investing in more sustainable agricultural systems, support for food producers that are pushed to the sides by agri-business investors should be a priority.  

Funds for women in agriculture, grants for Indigenous Peoples, or smallholder farmers could increase their crops and boost their financial independence. 

”Small farms under five hectares produce almost half of our food on less than one fifth of the farmland,” said Alvaro Lario, President of IFAD during the ECOSOC meeting. “Imagine what they could achieve if we invested in them much more.”

Image Credits: SOFI 2024.