According to the UN, in 2023 one in eleven people in the world and one in five people in Africa will face hunger due to conflict, climate change and economic crises.
According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the international community is far from the goal of ending hunger by 2030.
The results show that in 2023, about 733 million people, or one in 11 people worldwide and one in five people in Africa, will face hunger.
The report shows that the situation has reversed over the past 15 years, with malnutrition levels comparable to 2008-2009.
“713-757 million people suffer from chronic malnutrition and hunger. This is equivalent to one in 11 people going hungry in the world,” said Maximo Torero, Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Regional trends vary greatly: hunger is increasing in Africa and Latin America, while it remains stable in Asia.
“South America has very advanced social protection programs that allow it to target its interventions to effectively get rid of hunger very quickly,” explains Torero.
“We have not observed this in Africa. We found that these countries still do not have the institutional capacity to implement a well-targeted social protection program,” the chief economist explains.
Food insecurity and malnutrition are worsening due to a combination of factors, including persistent food price inflation, conflict, climate change and economic downturns, the report says.
The study warns that if current trends continue, an estimated 582 million people will be chronically undernourished by 2030, half of them in Africa.
The report also highlights that access to adequate food remains a challenge for billions of people. An estimated 2.33 billion people worldwide experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023, a number that has not changed significantly since a sharp increase in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lack of access to affordable healthy food also remains a critical problem, affecting more than a third of the world’s population.