ASIA AND THE PACIFIC Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2022: Statistics and Trends

1.2 PREVALENCE OF FOOD INSECURITY BASED ON THE FOOD INSECURITY EXPERIENCE SCALE

The worsening food security situation in the region is reflected not only in the Prevalence of undernourishment but also in the prevalence of the moderate or severe food-security figures presented in Table 3.

The Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)-based prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity is an estimate of the proportion of the population facing moderate or severe constraints on their ability to obtain safe, nutritious and sufficient food over the course of a year. People face moderate food insecurity when they are uncertain of their ability to obtain food and have been forced to reduce, at times over the year, the quality or quantity of food they consume due to a lack of money or other resources. Severe food insecurity means that individuals have likely run out of food, experienced hunger and, at the most extreme, have gone for days without eating, putting their health and well-being at serious risk.

The FIES survey module is composed of eight yes/no questions along a scale that covers a range of severity of food insecurity. Respondents are asked question such as whether at any time during a certain reference period they have worried about their ability to obtain enough food; their household has run out of food; or they have been forced to compromise on the quantity of food because they ate due to limited availability of money or other resources. Based on their responses, and using proper statistical techniques based on the Rasch measurement model, FAO calculates the prevalence of severe and moderate food insecurity.

Moderate or severe food insecurity is much higher for Southern Asia (40.6 percent) than South-eastern Asia (20.7 percent) as shown in Table 3. This is followed by 13.0 percent in Oceania and 6.2 percent in Eastern Asia. Compared with 2019, 47 million people are more food-insecure in 2021 in the region (Table 4).

The prevalence of severe food insecurity in Asia and the Pacific in 2021 was 10.5 percent, up from 7.0 percent in 2014 and from 9.8 percent in 2020. Southern Asia has the highest estimates among sub regions at 21.0 percent. Severe food insecurity is much lower comparatively in South-eastern Asia at 4.1 percent. It is relatively high in Oceania at 4.5 percent and at 1.0 percent in Eastern Asia.

The estimates of moderate food insecurity are much closer than severe food insecurity between Southern Asia (19.6 percent) and South-eastern Asia (16.6). The estimates for Oceania decreased by more than a percentage point from 9.4 in 2020 to 8.5 in 2021 and is less than pre-pandemic levels, the difference is marginal when compared to 2014 (8.9 percent).

Eastern Asia is the subregion with the lowest levels of food insecurity and also appears to be one of the few subregions in Asia where progress was made and food insecurity fell below pre-pandemic levels in 2021. The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity decreased 1.6 percentage points to 6.2 percent, and severe food insecurity fell by half to 1.0 percent.

Given the size of its population, Asia accounts for half the people facing moderate or severe food insecurity in the world (Table 4). An estimated 1.05 billion people in Asia and the Pacific experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2021, an increase of 343.5 million, or 48.9 percent, compared with 2014. The region accounted for 45.3 percent of the global total of 2.3 billion in 2021. Most of those people were residing in Southern Asia, which had 796.8 million moderately or severely food insecure people, compared with 139.7 million in Eastern Asia, 104.2 million in South-eastern Asia and 5.6 million in Oceania.

An estimated 460.2 million people in Asia and the Pacific experienced severe food insecurity in 2021, an increase of 170.6 million, or 58.9 percent, compared with 2014 (Table 5). The region accounted for 49.8 percent of the global total of 923.7 million in 2021. Southern Asia had 412.9 million severely food-insecure people, compared with 28.0 million in Eastern Asia, 17.4 million in South-eastern Asia and 2.0 million in Oceania.

This is reflected in individual country percentages (Figure 3). Many countries in Southern and South-eastern Asia show an increase in moderate or severe food insecurity. In Afghanistan, this increased dramatically to 70 percent, an increase of 150 percent over the 2014–16 average. These figures are a result of pre-existing economic shocks and the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on global supply chains, food prices, incomes, inflation and purchasing power. While the effects of the war in Ukraine on global food, energy and fertilizer prices and supplies are not captured, it is significantly impacting economies and poses further threats to food security, nutrition and livelihoods. Many households are experiencing a continuous and relentless succession of these shocks, which heighten the severity and magnitude of their acute food insecurity over time.