Chapter 2 Sustainable Development Goal 2.2: Malnutrition

Besides food security, nutrition is also central to fulfilling the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This report assesses regional levels and trends for six global nutrition targets that were endorsed by the World Health Assembly (WHA) in 2012 to be achieved by 2025, for which extended 2030 targets were subsequently proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Four out of the six indicators were also selected to monitor progress towards SDG Target 2.2, namely stunting, wasting and overweight in children under 5 years of age and anaemia in women aged 15 to 49 years. In addition, this report addresses the WHA target to halt the rise in adult obesity, which was adopted as part of the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) in 2013 (FAO, 2022a).

This section reports on four global nutrition indicators: stunting, wasting and overweight in children under 5 years of age, and anaemia in women aged 15 to 49 years.

Key messages
  • The Arab region continued to suffer from multiple forms of malnutrition. The prevalence of stunting among children under 5 years of age was 19.9 percent in 2022. The prevalence of overweight (9.5 percent) among children under 5 years of age and the prevalence of anaemia among women aged 15 to 49 years were higher than the world average in 2022.
  • Arab LDCs and low-income countries had the highest level of stunting, 31.2 percent and 30.5 percent, respectively. Prevalence of stunting in conflict countries (26.5 percent) was almost two times higher than in non-conflict countries (14.7 percent). High-income countries had the lowest prevalence of stunting (10.8 percent) in 2022. The region is off-track in meeting the intermediate SDG 2.2.1 or WHA target, reducing the prevalence of stunting by 40 percent by 2025 (from 2012 levels). Child stunting decreased only by 16.0 percent between 2012 and 2022, from 23.7 percent to 19.9 percent.
  • Wasting was 3.0 percent in lower-middle-income countries, 2.4 percent in upper-middle-income countries, 4.7 percent in high-income countries, and 3.2 percent in non-conflict countries. Low data availability prevented the calculation of average wasting values for the Arab States, low-income countries, Arab States LDCs, and conflict countries. However, as wasted children are more likely to live in low- or lower-middle-income countries, wasting was probably higher in these country groups.
  • The prevalence of overweight among children under the age of 5 was highest in lower-middle-income countries (14.4 percent), followed by high-income countries (9.5 percent) and upper-middle-income countries (8.7 percent), although the differences are non-significant. Child overweight was the lowest in Arab LDCs (2.4 percent) and low-income countries (3.6 percent). Overweight among children in conflict countries was almost a third of non-conflict countries. Overweight more than doubled among high-income countries between 2000 and 2022. Most Arab States are far from achieving the 2030 target of less than 3 percent.
  • The prevalence of anaemia among women aged 15 to 49 years was higher in the Arab States (33.3 percent) than the world average (29.9 percent). Anaemia was the highest in Arab LDCs (45.9 percent) and in low-income countries (43.9 percent), and it was the lowest in high-income countries (27.1 percent) in the Arab States. The reduction in the prevalence of anaemia in the Arab States (-12.9 percent) was three times higher than the global average (-4.2 percent) between 2000 and 2019.