EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2022: Statistics and Trends

1.1. Prevalence of undernourishment

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation’s (FAO) PoU indicator is derived from country data on food supply, food consumption and energy needs, while taking into consideration demographic characteristics such as age, sex and levels of physical activity. Designed to capture a state of energy deprivation lasting over a year, it does not reflect the short-lived effects of temporary crises or a temporarily inadequate intake of essential nutrients.

FAO strives always to improve the accuracy of the PoU estimates by taking into account new information; the entire historical series is updated for each report. For this reason, only the current series of estimates should be used, including for values in past years.^{1 1} For more detail, see: FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP & WHO. 2019. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019. Rome, FAO. https://www.fao.org/3/ca5162en/ca5162en.pdf

In the past two decades, countries in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region have made significant progress in combating undernourishment. In 2000, the PoU in the entire region was 3.1 percent, and it has since fallen to below 2.5 percent (Figure 1).

The undernourishment trends by subregion show that the low PoU levels – and the stable trends – at the regional level since 2000 are mainly driven by sustained progress in hunger eradication in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Europe and Ukraine, Europe Free Trade Association (EFTA), the European Union and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (EU27 and the United Kingdom) and the Western Balkans and by rapid declines in undernourishment in the Caucasus and Central Asia. The Caucasus and Central Asia have been negatively impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; in 2020, the PoU increased by 0.5 percentage points in both subregions, to 3.4 percent in the Caucasus and to 3.1 percent in Central Asia. By 2021, the PoU in the Caucasus fell to 2.9 percent, while in Central Asia it remains at 3.1 percent. The PoU in all subregions was still lower than the world average of 9.8 percent in 2021.

The data in Figure 2 for 2013–2015 and 2019–2021 show the persistence of the PoU in some countries. According to 2019–2021 data, the countries that have a higher prevalence of undernourishment in the ECA region are Tajikistan, Georgia and the Republic of Moldova. Tajikistan has achieved significant progress in the reduction of PoU, from 18.5 percent in 2013–2015 to 8.6 percent in 2019–2021. During the same period, there was slight decrease in Georgia (from 8 percent in 2013–2015 to 7.5 percent in 2019–2021) and a slight increase in the Republic of Moldova (from 6.5 percent in 2013–2015 to 7 percent in 2019–2021). There was a slight increase of the PoU in Armenia as well, and the PoU was reduced in Albania, Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkmenistan.

Since the early 2000s, most countries in the region have achieved the target of eradicating hunger. In 2000, the number of undernourished in the ECA region was 26.6 million (Table 1), and this has fallen significantly. The numbers are not reported for 2021 due to the PoU being lower than 2.5 percent in many countries.^{2 2} FAO does not consider national-level PoU estimates lower than 2.5 percent to be sufficiently reliable for reporting due to statistical margins of error around the parameters used to calculate the PoU.

The number of undernourished in Central Asia was reduced from 8.1 million in 2000 to 3.7 million in 2010 and to 1.9 million in 2019, a drop of 49 percent from 2010 to 2019. The number of undernourished then increased to 2.3 million in 2020, where it remained through 2021 as well. Similar to Central Asia, the number of undernourished in the Caucasus was reduced significantly from 2000 (2.9 million) to 2010 (600 000). Since then, the number has remained around 500 000 to 600 000 through 2021. There was a 72 percent drop from 2000 to 2021 in Central Asia and an 83 percent drop in the Caucasus during that same period. The number of undernourished in the Western Balkans was 800 000 in 2000, and that number experienced only minor changes, staying at around 500 000 through 2021. The number of undernourished in the other subregions is not reported, as the PoU in those places is below 2.5 percent.

Country data show that in comparison with 2000–2002, in 2019–2021 there was a decrease in the number of undernourished in most of the countries. Large reductions were seen in Tajikistan (from 2.6 million to 800 000), Armenia (from 800 000 to 100 000) and Kyrgyzstan (from 700 000 to 300 000). The number of undernourished has not changed in Georgia and Serbia (300 000 in 2000–2002 and 2019–2021 in both countries). There was an increase in the number of undernourished in the Republic of Moldova (from 100 000 in 2000–2002 to 300 000 in 2019–2021).

The worsening food security situation in Europe and Central Asia is reflected in both the prevalence of undernourishment and in the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity.