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

1.1 Prevalence of undernourishment

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) indicator is derived from official country data on food supply, food consumption and dietary energy needs in the population considering demographic characteristics such as age, sex and levels of physical activity. Designed to capture a state of chronic energy deprivation, 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} FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP & WHO. 2019. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019. Safeguarding against economic slowdowns and downturns. Rome, FAO.

With the countries slowly opening up after the COVID-19 pandemic, the estimated number of undernourished as well as prevalence of undernourishment in the Asia and the Pacific region decreased from 2021 to 2022 (Figure 1). This is a positive development even if the numbers are still high, considering that the global goal is to end hunger. In terms of prevalence of undernourishment, there was a decrease from 8.8 to 8.4 from 2021 to 2022, similar to the recorded estimate in 2020. The 2022 PoU is lower than the world average of 9.2 for the same year. However, when the regional data are compared with pre-pandemic level (7.3 percent), it is still higher. It is worth noting that within the region there is wide disparity in PoU in 2022, with Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand) followed by Southern Asia having the highest prevalence of undernourishment (20.9 percent and 15.6 percent, respectively). On the other hand, Eastern Asia had the lowest (less than 2.5 percent), which has remained unchanged since 2010 (Table 1).

Figure 2 shows the trends in the prevalence of undernourishment in the subregions of Asia and the Pacific. It shows clearly that the decreasing trend for the region can also be observed for South Asia and South-eastern Asia. The absolute numbers showed 12 million fewer undernourished people in the Asia and Pacific region in 2021, but 55 million more than in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Improvements were seen in Southern Asia, with 12.4 million fewer people in 2022 compared with 2021, but still 55 million above pre-COVID-pandemic levels. When compared against 2021, South-eastern Asia showed a reduction of 1.9 million undernourished people in 2022. Conversely, Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand) increased slightly, by 0.2 million (Figure 3 and Table 2).

Figure 4 shows the PoU situation when disaggregated by country and subregion. In 2020–2022, the projected values show that the countries with highest percentages of undernourishment were the Democratic Republic of Korea in Eastern Asia (above 45 percent) and Afghanistan in Southern Asia (30 percent). The other countries with high prevalences were: Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands in Oceania; Timor-Leste in South-eastern Asia; and India and Pakistan in Southern Asia. Clearly, some countries are facing challenges in ensuring that their populations are adequately nourished.

The impacts of undernourishment extend beyond health and nutritional well-being to include economic and social costs.

The estimates of the PoU show that the region is slowly improving in its battle against hunger, although some subregions continue to show rising trends. As shared during the Asia–Pacific Symposium on Agrifood Systems Transformation held in October 2022, there was recognition by country representatives, specifically among the national convenors for Food System Transformation, that a whole-of-country strategy to transform agrifood systems is imperative so they can deliver on positive outcomes on food security and nutrition. Specific actions recommended include advocacy and awareness-raising on the need of public–private financing, adoption of climate-smart innovations and technology, as well as nutrition-sensitive value chains, among other actions.