The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023

Figures, tables and boxes

TABLES

1 Prevalence of undernourishment, 2005–2022

2 Number of undernourished people, 2005–2022

3 Prevalence of food insecurity at severe level only, and at moderate or severe level, based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, 2015–2022

4 Number of people experiencing food insecurity at severe level only, and at moderate or severe level, based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, 2015–2022

5 More than 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2021, although there was some improvement from 2020 to 2021

6 All regions made some progress towards the stunting, wasting and exclusive breastfeeding 2030 targets except Oceania excluding Australia and New Zealand

7 The three stages of transformation of agrifood value chains

8 The availability of food groups to meet a Healthy Diet Basket, by region (per capita per day), 2020

9 Urban–rural catchment areas (URCAs) used in Chapter 4

10 Food budgets, income levels and household food consumption shares for high- and low-food-budget countries analysed

11 In the 11 countries in Africa, a diet transition at the household level is occurring across the rural–urban continuum and in high- and low-food-budget countries – even in rural areas, though lagged and to a lesser extent than in urban and peri-urban areas

A1.1 Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and global nutrition targets: prevalence of undernourishment, moderate or severe food insecurity, selected forms of malnutrition, exclusive breastfeeding and low birthweight

A1.2 Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and global nutrition targets: number of people who are affected by undernourishment, moderate or severe food insecurity and selected forms of malnutrition; number of infants exclusively breastfed and number of babies born with low birthweight

A1.3 Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity, and severe food insecurity only, by degree of urbanization in 2022

A1.4 Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity, and severe food insecurity only, among adult men and women in 2022

A1.5 Data quality categories for administrative sources

A2.1 Ranges of PoU and NoU nowcasted in 2020, 2021 and 2022

A2.2 Regression coefficients from three alternative models estimated on historical CV|y values (2000–2018) and comparison with the model used in 2022

A2.3 Countries and territories with nutrition outcome data from national surveys between 2015 and 2021 for exclusive breastfeeding and between 2016 and 2022 for stunting, wasting and overweight that contributed to the rural–urban analysis

A2.4 Rules for progress assessment against the global nutrition targets

A3.1 The cost and affordability of a healthy diet by region, subregion, country and country income group, 2017–2021

A3.2 Lower- and upper-bound estimates of the percentage and number of people (in millions) unable to afford a healthy diet, by region, subregion and country income group in 2021

A4.1 URCA definition of categories across the rural–urban continuum

A5.1 Household surveys used in Chapter 4

A5.2 Household sample sizes by URCA for the surveys used in Chapter 4

A5.3 NOVA food groups with descriptions and examples

A5.4 Food processing level aggregates used in Section 4.1 adapted from NOVA

A5.5 FAO/WHO GIFT food group level aggregates

A5.6 Summary of food group aggregates and terminology of food groups used in Section 4.1

A7.1 The non-price determinants of purchased food consumption shares (for home consumption and food away from home) in selected high- and low-food-budget countries in Africa

A7.2 The non-price determinants of consumption shares of highly processed foods in selected high- and low-food-budget countries in Africa

A7.3 The non-price determinants of consumption shares of animal source foods in selected high- and low-food-budget countries in Africa

A7.4 The non-price determinants of the consumption shares of food away from home in selected high- and low-food-budget countries in Africa

A7.5 The non-price determinants of the consumption shares of vegetables in selected high- and low-food-budget countries in Africa

A9.1 Comparison of average food expenditure and cost of a healthy diet basket for selected high- and low-food-budget countries in Africa

A9.2 Subnational cost of a healthy diet in selected high- and low-food-budget countries in Africa across the rural–urban continuum (URCA)

A9.3 Affordability of a healthy diet in selected high- and low-food-budget countries in Africa across the rural–urban continuum (URCA)

A10.1 Moderate or severe food insecurity based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale across the rural–urban continuum (URCA) for selected high- and low-food-budget countries in Africa

A10.2 Severe food insecurity based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale across the rural–urban continuum (URCA) in selected high- and low-food-budget countries in Africa

A10.3 Prevalence of malnutrition in children under five years of age across the rural–urban continuum (URCA) for three countries in Africa

FIGURES

1 Global hunger remained virtually unchanged from 2021 to 2022 but is still far above pre-COVID-19-pandemic levels

2 Progress was made towards reducing hunger in most subregions in Asia and in Latin America, but hunger is still on the rise in Western Asia, the Caribbean and all subregions of Africa

3 In 2022, Asia was home to 55 percent (402 million) of the people in the world affected by hunger, while more than 38 percent (282 million) lived in Africa

4 The prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) is still higher in 2022 than before the pandemic in 58 percent of countries, and the situation is worse in low-income countries (77 percent)

5 Projected numbers of undernourished indicate that the world is far off track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030

6 Moderate or severe food insecurity remained unchanged at the global level from 2021 to 2022, with worsening food insecurity levels in Africa and in Northern America and Europe, and improvements in Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean

7 The concentration and distribution of food insecurity by severity differ greatly across the regions of the world

8 Food insecurity, at both levels of severity, is higher in rural areas than in urban areas in all regions except Northern America and Europe

9 Globally and in every region, the prevalence of food insecurity is higher among women than among men

10 Globally in 2021, the cost of a healthy diet increased and more people were unable to afford the diet compared to 2019 in all regions except Northern America and Europe, despite a small decline in unaffordability from 2020 to 2021

11 Most of the people unable to afford a healthy diet in 2021 lived in Southern Asia, and in Eastern and Western Africa

12 Stunting in children under five years of age and exclusive breastfeeding have improved and some progress has been made on wasting, while low birthweight and overweight in children under five years of age have not changed

13 Low- and lower-middle-income countries bear the greatest burden of stunting, wasting and low birthweight, but also have the largest proportion of exclusively breastfed children; most overweight children live in lower-middle- or upper-middle-income countries

14 The global trends in stunting, wasting, exclusive breastfeeding and low birthweight must be accelerated, while for overweight in children they will have to be reversed, to achieve the 2030 global nutrition targets

15 The prevalence of stunting and wasting was higher in rural compared to urban areas, while overweight was more commonly found in urban areas

16 Drivers of urbanization

17 Gross domestic product per capita and level of urbanization

18 Patterns of urbanization

19 Global mapping and distribution of population by rural–urban continuum (URCA) in 2015

20 The pathways through which urbanization affects agrifood systems and access to affordable healthy diets

21 Challenges and opportunities in accessing affordable healthy diets across the rural–urban continuum

22 Distribution of population across ten URCA categories of the rural–urban continuum, for selected countries, 2020

23 Two contrasting patterns of urbanization: dense metropolitan urbanization (Nigeria) and small city and town dispersed urbanization (Burkina Faso)

24 While high food purchases among households living in urban areas are expected, they are surprisingly high across the rural–urban continuum, even for rural households

25 There is a marked drop in purchased food consumption shares for low- and middle-income households living in peri-urban areas, with levels similar to rural households in both high- and low-food-budget countries

26 In the 11 countries in Africa, rural households are consuming processed foods, including highly processed foods, even those living 1 to 2 hours or more from a city or town

27 In the 11 countries in Africa, low processed and highly processed food consumption shares are higher across the rural–urban continuum in low-food-budget countries, while shares of food away from home are higher in high-food-budget countries

28 In the 11 countries in Africa, the share of staple foods represents a minority of total household food consumption in value terms, and rises as income falls across the rural–urban continuum in both high- and low-food-budget countries

29 In the 11 countries in Africa, animal source foods and food away from home substitute staple foods, moving from rural to urban areas

30 In the 11 countries in Africa, the cost of a healthy diet in urban areas is much higher than in peri-urban areas, and it decreases the smaller the city size and moving closer to rural areas; this trend is less pronounced in high-food-budget countries, which show similar costs across all urban areas

31 In the 11 countries in Africa, the higher cost of animal source foods drives the high cost of a healthy diet across the rural–urban continuum, especially in urban and remote rural areas

32 The cost of a healthy diet exceeds average food consumption for low- and middle-income households in both high- and low-food-budget countries in the 11 countries analysed in Africa

33 In the 11 countries in Africa, the percentage of the population unable to afford a healthy diet in peri-urban areas is higher than in urban centres and similar to rural areas

34 In many of the nine countries analysed in Africa, the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in urban and peri-urban areas is similar to that in rural areas, and in some cases, slightly higher, indicating that food insecurity is not exclusively a rural problem in most of the countries analysed

35 The prevalence of child stunting generally increases as cities become smaller and moving away from urban centres; child wasting and overweight are lower and exhibit less evident trends across the rural–urban continuum

36 Reinforcing agrifood systems linkages and rural–urban connectivity to make healthy diets affordable across the rural–urban continuum

37 Challenges and opportunities for agrifood systems arising from urbanization, mapped onto policies across the rural–urban continuum

A6.1 Urban–rural catchment areas

A7.1 Average shares of total household food consumption values for animal source foods and food away from home by urban, peri-urban and rural area for selected high- and low-food-budget countries in Africa

A9.1 Cost contribution of each food group as share of total cost of a healthy diet in selected high- and low-food-budget countries in Africa across the rural–urban continuum (URCA)

BOXES

1 How does the evidence on chronic food insecurity align with the evidence on acute food insecurity in food crisis countries?

2 Untangling the rural–urban continuum

3 Definitions of urban, peri-urban and rural areas in urban–rural catchment areas (URCAs)

4 Food deserts and swamps

5 The myth of rural subsistence farming in Africa

6 Food security across the rural–urban continuum: evidence from 21 rural development projects worldwide

7 Initiatives for more nutritious food away from home in South-eastern Asia

8 The role of urban proximity in agricultural intensification: case studies in Ethiopia and India

9 Supporting inclusive food value chains in Africa

10 Strengthening capacities of small and medium enterprises to offer safe and nutritious foods

11 Territorial food markets, food safety and healthy diets

12 Egg Hub operator model: a scalable win–win solution for small-scale producers and low-income consumers

13 Urban Food Systems Coalition: a global platform to raise awareness on the key role of subnational governments in agrifood systems transformation across the rural–urban continuum

14 Subnational agrifood systems governance agreements among metropolitan, intermediary and small cities in Peru

15 Inclusive agrifood systems governance mechanism in Kisumu County, Kenya, linking urban and rural areas

16 Local agrifood systems strategies linking large metropolitan areas with rural hinterland in Antananarivo, Nairobi and Quito

17 The Rapid Urban Food Systems Appraisal Tool: one possible tool to analyse agrifood systems across the rural–urban continuum

18 Strengthening multilevel institutional agreements through public food procurement in Manabí Province, Ecuador

19 The multistakeholder participatory process for establishing multilevel institutional agreements for food security and nutrition in Western Cape Province, South Africa

20 The regional Strategic Food Plan for Catalonia 2021–2026 and the Catalan Food Council, Spain

21 Multilevel public food procurement network in Denmark: national, regional and local governments working together to initiate the process of establishing multilevel agrifood systems governance

A8.1 Methodology – Global and subnational estimation of the CoAHD