Chapter 1 Sustainable Development Target 2.1: Undernourishment and Food Insecurity

Key messages
  • The worldwide prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) was about 9.1 percent of the world population in 2023, with no change from 2022. The PoU in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region has been below 2.5 percent since 2005.
  • The PoU has remained below 2.5 percent for more than a decade in all ECA subregions other than in the Caucasus (in 2015, 2016 and 2017) and in Central Asia,3 where it was 3 percent in 2023 and marginally higher in 2022. The European Union and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (EU-27 and the United Kingdom) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries have had a PoU below 2.5 percent since 2000.
  • In the ECA region, 107.2 million people, or 11.5 percent of the population, were estimated to be moderately or severely food insecure in 2023. This is lower than in 2022, when this figure was 11.7 percent, though it was higher than all previous years’ estimates. The global trend remained unchanged for the second year in a row on this indicator. About 2.6 percent (equivalent to 24.5 million people) of the ECA’s population were facing severe food insecurity in 2023, a decrease of 0.2 percentage points in one year.
  • In 2023, the prevalence of severe food insecurity and of moderate or severe food insecurity were below the world averages in all ECA subregions. Central Asia and the Western Balkans had a higher prevalence of severe food insecurity than the region as a whole. For moderate or severe food insecurity, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Western Balkans exceeded the prevalence at the regional level.

3 A particular focus of part II is on the 18 countries that are targeted by the FAO programmes in the ECA region. By subregion, these countries are the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia); Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan); CIS Europe and Ukraine (Belarus, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation and Ukraine); Türkiye; and the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia).