Alfred Ajayi
A new report on the state of global food security and nutrition has revealed that the world is not on track in its bid to achieve food security and end hunger by 2030. The Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2), which is titled “Zero Hunger” has some main objectives which include: ending hunger, improving nutrition, promoting sustainable agriculture and resilient agricultural practices as well as biodiversity.
Barely seven year to the target date, the 2024 State of Food Security and Nutrition report entitled “Financing to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition”, shows that the world is not on track to achieve this lofty objective. The report indicates that global hunger rose sharply from 2019 to 2021 and has persisted at the same level up till 2023.
While progress was recorded towards reducing hunger in some sub-regions of Asia and in Latin America, hunger is still on the rise in Western Asia, the Caribbean and most sub-regions of Africa. In other words, Africa hosts the greatest percentage of hungry people in the world. The global food insecurity levels remained virtually unchanged from 2022 to 2023 while only Latin America and the Caribbean have shown notable reduction in the hunger level.
According to the report, the concentration and distribution of food insecurity by severity in 2023 varies remarkably across regions. In most regions, food insecurity is more prevalent in rural areas than in urban areas, while hunger affects more women than men across all regions of the world. However, the gender gap in food availability has narrowed in most regions for two consecutive years.
Hunger is higher and has increased the most in countries affected by the major drivers and hunger increases are higher in poor countries affected by more than one major driver. In terms of affordance of healthy diet, the proportion of the lucky ones has decreased from 2020 to 2022 with three-quarters of those unable to afford a healthy diet live in low- and lower-middle income countries.
Fortunately, global prevalence of stunting and wasting has recorded steady decline even as levels of exclusive breastfeeding keeps rising over the past decade. Be that as it may, the world will still not be able to achieve any of the seven global nutrition targets by 2030. The targets are: 40% reduction in the number of stunted children under 5, 50% reduction of anemia in women of reproductive age, 30% reduction in low birth weight, and no increase in childhood overweight. Other targets are: increased rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months up to at least 50%, reduction and maintenance of childhood wasting to less than 5% while halting the rise in diabetes and obesity.
Unfortunately, more countries are off track for most of the seven global nutrition targets. As against the global estimates, less-developed countries have much higher levels of stunting in children under five years and anaemia in women aged 15 to 49 years. Adult obesity is also worryingly on the rise. Globally, obesity rates have risen sharply and thinness and underweight have declined among school-age children, adolescents, adults and the elderly.
The report also divulges an extremely low domestic government expenditure on agriculture per rural inhabitant. The situation is more concerning in low – and lower middle-income countries where it is mostly needed to reduce food insecurity and malnutrition. However, public spending on food security and nutrition
shows almost steady growth in Benin up to 2021 same as Uganda, where the record could not be sustained in 2022.
Net banking loans to agriculture, forestry and fishing show an almost continuous decline. By estimation, trillions of dollars are needed to finance investments meant to end hunger and some forms of malnutrition, and to increase the affordability of healthy diets by 2030.
According to the Global Report on Food Crises 2024, nearly 282 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity in the 59 food-crisis countries/territories which were included in the analysis in 2023. Four out of the five countries with the largest numbers of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity are in Africa. In descending order, the countries include are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, the Sudan, Afghanistan and Ethiopia.
One major factor reportedly fuelling acute food insecurity and threatening people’s right to adequate food all over the world is the deepening humanitarian crises. Over 705,000 people in five countries/territories were by projections facing catastrophe levels of acute food insecurity in 2023, most of them (576 000) were in the Gaza Strip even as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) special brief on Gaza on 18 March 2024 had warned of an imminent risk of famine, with more than a quarter of the population facing catastrophe. Acute food insecurity was then projected to threaten half Gaza’s 2.2 million people by July 2024, if hostilities and restricted access to humanitarian aid continued.
Also, as a result of the surging conflict in the Sudan, more than 20 million people were facing food security crisis conditions or worse during the lean season in June–September in 2023. The country accounting for the world’s largest internal displacement crisis was also responsible for 6.3 million (the greatest number) of people facing emergency levels of acute food insecurity in the world.
In South Sudan, 7.8 million people representing 63 percent of the population were facing high levels of acute food insecurity during the lean season in April–July 2023, including 2.9 million in emergency and 43,000 others in catastrophe categories.
The story in Haiti is similar as escalating conflict, violence and internal displacement worsen food crisis, with almost 5 million people (half the population), facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse including 1.8 million facing emergency.
Nearly 13 million people in the Syrian Arab Republic and 18 million in Yemen faced high levels of acute food insecurity. The above realities across the world speak to the urgent need for humanitarian aid, including emergency agriculture, nutrition and food assistance.
Also, there must be an end to the hostilities, which are major drivers of food insecurity with increased access to populations in need as well as rebuilding of essential infrastructure and institutions. All these will help to guarantee people’s livelihoods and access to basic necessities.
The 2024 State of Food Security and Nutrition report shows that Latin America and the Caribbean will reduce chronic hunger at a slower pace by 8 million people, the prevalence of undernourishment will be brought below 5 percent by 2030. The situation in Africa is a sharp contrast needing accelerated efforts and increased resource mobilization, without which the continent, under current prospects, will only manage to stabilize the situation at the high level of hunger inherited from the last few years.
New estimates show that the global prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) still remains far above pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, with little change in four years. Severe food insecurity rose in prevalence globally from 9.1 percent in 2019 to 10.6 percent in 2020 and has remained stubbornly unchanged since then. In 2023, an estimated 28.9 percent of the global population (2.33 billion people) were moderately or severely food insecure (they did not have regular access to adequate food). While the prevalence remained virtually unchanged from 2020 to 2023, number of people facing moderate or severe food insecurity globally increased by more than 65 million reflecting global population growth.
Comparatively, Africa in 2023 remains the region with the largest proportion of food insecure population. The 58.0 percent prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity on the continent nearly doubled the global average with Middle Africa having the highest prevalence of 77.7 percent (157 million people), followed by Eastern Africa with 64.5 percent (313 million people). Western Africa accounts for 61.4 percent, (270 million people), while one-quarter of Southern Africa population (17.3 million people) and more than one-third of Northern Africans (89.4 million people) were affected within the year.
These unfortunate developments notwithstanding, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG Target 2.1) seeks a world free from hunger, where all people have access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round. These demands greater political will and commitment from government across countries of Africa.
As the State of Food Security and Nutrition report 2024 charges us, the seeds of future peace, food security and shared prosperity must be planted today.
Alfred Ajayi is a journalist, climate change enthusiast
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