UN FAO report: One in nine people globally is hungry
The number of people globally who suffer from hunger increased for the third year in a row in 2018 after nearly a decade of improving hunger statistics, according to a new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN).
The number of people globally who suffer from hunger increased for the third year in a row in 2018 after nearly a decade of improving hunger statistics, according to a new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN). An estimated 820 million people lack sufficient food—up from 811 million the prior year, according to the report, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. That translates to about one in nine people who is going hungry around the world, a number that underscores the “immense challenge” of achieving the Zero Hunger Target of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by 2030.
"Our actions to tackle these troubling trends will have to be bolder, not only in scale but also in terms of multisectoral collaboration," the heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the UN Children’s Fund, the World Food Programme, and the World Health Organization urged in their joint foreword to the report.
The key messages outlined in the report include the following:
- Hunger is on the rise in almost all African subregions, making Africa the region with the highest prevalence of undernourishment, at almost 20% versus the overall 2018 figure of slightly less than 11%.
- Hunger is slowly rising in Latin America and the Caribbean, although its prevalence is still below 7%
- Western Asia shows a continuous increase in the number of those who are going hungry since 2010, with more than 12% of its population currently undernourished.
- This year’s report introduces a second indicator for monitoring SDG Target 2.1: The Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES). While severe food insecurity is associated with the concept of hunger, people experiencing moderate food insecurity face uncertainties about their ability to obtain food and have been forced to compromise on the quality and/or quantity of the food they consume.
- Considering all people in the world affected by moderate levels of food insecurity together with those who suffer from hunger, it is estimated that over 2 billion people do not have regular access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food, including 8% of the population in North America and Europe.
- Overweight and obesity continue to increase in all regions, particularly among school-age children and adults. In 2018, an estimated 40 million children under five were overweight. In 2016, 131 million children aged 5–9, 207 million adolescents, and 2 billion adults were overweight. About a third of overweight adolescents and adults, and 44% of overweight children aged 5–9 were obese.