ASIA AND THE PACIFIC Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2023: Statistics and Trends

1.2 Prevalence of food insecurity based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale

The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) is an estimate of the proportion of the population facing moderate or severe constraints on their ability to obtain 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 and/or quantity of food they consume due to 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.

Figure 5 shows the prevalence of food insecurity by subregions in Asia and the Pacific and the world. The region had a lower prevalence for both moderate or severe and severe food insecurity when compared with the world prevalence since 2015. Southern Asia showed higher prevalence of severe food insecurity compared with the other subregions, and it is in Eastern Asia where the lowest prevalence of severe food insecurity was observed. Compared with the world, Southern Asia had higher percentages for both moderate or severe and severe food insecurity since 2015.

If examined in terms of severity of food insecurity, there were 23.5 percent moderately or severely food-insecure people in the region in 2022 (Table 3). Severe food insecurity figures were 9.7 percent for the region compared with 11.3 percent for the world. Southern Asia had the highest prevalence of severely food-insecure people (19.4 percent). When moderately or severely food-insecure people are grouped together, Southern Asia still had the highest prevalence rate (40.3 percent) in 2022, exceeding the prevalence for the region. These figures for Southern Asia are also higher than the world average for the same categories, i.e. either severe or moderate and severe food insecurity.

Figure 6 shows the declining trend in severe food insecurity from 2021 to 2022 for all subregions except Southeastern Asia, with Southern Asia showing the largest decrease from 2021 to 2022. The rest of the subregions almost levelled off in the last two years. The region represented 47.1 percent of the world’s severely foodinsecure people, with 424.6 million severely food-insecure individuals. This is a decrease from the 49 percent of the world’s food-insecure individuals in 2021. Southern Asia showed a decline from 417.9 million in 2021 to 389.2 million in 2022, but still far from pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. This subregion still has the highest number – 389.2 million, representing almost 92 percent of Asia and the Pacific’s severely food-insecure people. Eastern Asia and Oceania had very small reductions in the number of severely food-insecure people (1.0 and 0.5 percent points, respectively) from 2021 to 2022 (Table 4).

Figure 7 shows steep increases for Southern Asia in moderate or severe food insecurity in 2020 from 2019 and then decreased in 2021 but again slightly increased in 2022. Eastern Asia and South-eastern Asia have almost plateaued for the last two years in the number of moderately or severely food-insecure people. Table 5 shows that in 2022 there are more than 1 billion moderately or severely food insecure people in Asia and the Pacific region, representing almost 44 percent of the world’s moderately or severely food-insecure people. Southern Asia has the highest number (809.2 million) while Oceania had the least number of moderately or severely food-insecure individuals in 2022 (5.9 million).

Figure 8 presents a subregional and country level analysis for 2020–2022. Afghanistan, which is part of Southern Asia, had the highest prevalence within the Asia and the Pacific region. Within this subregion, Pakistan, Iran, Nepal and Bangladesh had prevalences above 30 percent. South-eastern Asia, where Cambodia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, and Philippines belong, also showed a high prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity. Countries in Eastern Asia, on the other hand, showed the lowest prevalences. In Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand), Kiribati had the highest prevalence (over 40 percent) of moderate or severe food insecurity.

The latest sex-disaggregated data show that overall, in the Asia and the Pacific region women are more severely food-insecure than men, with Southern Asia accounting for the largest gap in prevalence of severe food insecurity between the two sexes (Figure 9). In 2022, Southern Asia also had the highest prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity for women (42.7 percent) compared to men (37.3 percent). Eastern Asia, on the other hand, had a higher prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity among men (6.8 percent) as compared to women (5.6 percent) in 2022 (Table 6).