World’s hunger crisis amid conflicts and economic chaos

The world is heading towards an unprecedented food crisis.About 733mn people — or 9.1% of the global population — were undernourished in 2023, little changed for a third straight year, UN agencies said in the latest report.That’s still 152mn more than in 2019, putting the world off track to reach key goals, including zero hunger, by the end of this decade.The world has made little progress in combating global hunger as conflict, extreme weather and economic challenges restrict people’s access to food."While we have made some progress, improvements have been uneven and insufficient,” the UN said in the annual flagship study. "Vulnerable populations, particularly women, youth and indigenous peoples, are disproportionately affected.”Moderate or severe food insecurity, which forces people to occasionally skip meals, hit 2.33bn people last year – almost 29% of the global population.The report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Unicef, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organisation suggests the UN goal of a world without hunger by 2030 is fading further.Conflicts, climate chaos and economic downturns are already known as major drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition that combine with underlying factors including persistent inequality, the unaffordability of healthy diets and unhealthy food environments.But these major drivers are becoming more frequent and intense — and occurring concurrently more often — meaning more people are exposed to hunger and food insecurity.A healthy diet was unaffordable for more than one third of the world’s population in 2022.Regional inequalities are stark: More than 71% of people in low-income countries could not afford healthy diets, compared with just over 6% in high-income nations.Hunger continues to rise in Africa, affecting 20.4% of the population, while remaining stable in Asia at 8.1%. Latin America has shown some progress with 6.2% of its population facing hunger. However, from 2022 to 2023, hunger increased in Western Asia, the Caribbean, and most African subregions.According to David Laborde, an economist at the FAO and one of the report’s authors, the post-Covid economic rebound was unequal within and between countries.Wars and extreme weather events also raged unabated in 2023, but the world has failed to put in place a "Marshall Plan” to bolster funds earmarked for fighting hunger, he said.The UN agencies’ report, which was presented for a G20 summit in Brazil, suggested a major reform of financing food security and nutrition to alleviate the scourge.This would start with adopting common definitions putting all actors on the same page. According to current estimates, between $176bn and $3,975bn are needed to eradicate hunger by 2030.Yet the "highly fragmented” financial architecture "makes the scale-up and effective implementation of financing for food security and nutrition unfeasible.Donors, international agencies, NGOs and foundations are required to coordinate better as the current set-up lacks shared priorities and is characterised by "an over-proliferation of actors delivering mostly small, short-term projects.”Another weakness of the current system is that donor intentions do not always meet the needs of populations.The global food problem is worsening and some nations in Africa and the Middle East could soon slip into famine with conflicts, economic hardships and weather extremes limiting access to food.The UN report also recommended developing financial instruments combining private and public funds so that private actors invest in food security, a source of productivity and political stability."There is no time to lose, as the cost of inaction greatly exceeds the cost of action this (UN) report calls for.”