The global assessment of the state of food security and nutrition in 2022 presented in this edition of the report is a snapshot of the world still recovering from a global pandemic and now grappling with the consequences of the war in Ukraine, which has further rattled food and energy markets. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on lives and livelihoods was devastating, producing a global economic recession that ended three decades of global progress in poverty reduction, contributing to an estimated increase of close to 90 million people facing hunger in just one year (from 2019 to 2020). The year 2021 marked a partial recovery from the pandemic-induced contractions that was highly uneven, across countries and within countries; the pace of recovery was much slower in low- and lower-middle-income countries, and disadvantaged segments of the population everywhere were still struggling to recover from the income losses suffered during the peak of the pandemic the previous year. This contributed to a further increase of about 38 million in the estimated number of people experiencing hunger in 2021. In February 2022, just as the weight of the pandemic was beginning to lift, the war in Ukraine erupted involving two major producers of agricultural commodities in the world, sending shockwaves through commodity and energy markets, weakening the recovery and adding even greater uncertainty.1
It is in this context of continued slow and uneven recovery from the pandemic and global repercussions of the war in Ukraine that this assessment of the state of food security and nutrition in 2022 is presented. Encouraging signs of economic recovery from the pandemic and projections of a decline in poverty and hunger have been tempered by rising prices of food, agricultural inputs and energy.
This chapter presents an annual update of the global assessment of food security and nutrition up to the year 2022 and a report on progress towards meeting Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 with a special focus on SDG Targets 2.1 and 2.2: end hunger and ensure access by all people to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round; and end all forms of malnutrition by 2030.
Section 2.1 presents an assessment of progress towards achieving the SDG 2 targets for hunger and food insecurity. It includes global, regional and subregional updates of the two Target 2.1 indicators: the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) and the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), revised up to 2022 based on the most recent data available to FAO at the time of writing this report. Updated projections of what the global PoU may be in 2030 are also provided. A comparison of the food insecurity status of men and women is presented, as well as, for the first time, a look at differences in food insecurity among rural, peri-urban and urban populations.
Section 2.2 presents updated estimates of the indicators of the cost and affordability of a healthy diet (CoAHD). These indicators provide evidence regarding people’s economic access to diverse, nutritious foods, which is one critical aspect of achieving healthy diets. In this year’s edition of the report, the cost and affordability indicators are updated to 2021. Lack of recent data on estimated income distributions, purchasing power parities (PPPs), and detailed food prices at the country level prevents an update to 2022.
Section 2.3 presents an assessment of the state of nutrition and progress towards the global nutrition targets defined by the World Health Assembly (WHA) in 2012 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG 2.2). Updates are provided for five nutrition targets: low birthweight, exclusive breastfeeding, and stunting, wasting and overweight in children under five years of age.
2.1 Food security indicators – latest updates and progress towards ending hunger and ensuring food security
- ➔ Global hunger, measured by the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) (SDG Indicator 2.1.1), remained relatively unchanged from 2021 to 2022 but is still far above pre-COVID-19-pandemic levels, affecting around 9.2 percent of the world population in 2022 compared with 7.9 percent in 2019.
- ➔ It is estimated that between 691 and 783 million people in the world faced hunger in 2022. Considering the midrange (about 735 million), 122 million more people faced hunger in 2022 than in 2019, before the pandemic.
- ➔ The economic recovery from the pandemic observed in 2021 slowed in 2022. Rising prices of food, agricultural inputs and energy, magnified by the impact of the war in Ukraine, undermined the recovery of employment and incomes of the most vulnerable people, hindering a decline in hunger.
- ➔ The relative lack of change in hunger between 2021 and 2022 at the global level hides substantial differences at the regional and subregional levels. While progress was made towards reducing hunger in Asia and in Latin America, hunger was still on the rise in Western Asia, the Caribbean and all subregions of Africa.
- ➔ The PoU in Africa rose from 19.4 percent in 2021 to 19.7 percent in 2022, driven mostly by increases in Northern and Southern Africa. The number of people facing hunger in Africa has increased by 11 million people since 2021 and by more than 57 million people since the outbreak of the pandemic.
- ➔ The PoU in Asia fell from 8.8 percent in 2021 to 8.5 percent in 2022 – a decrease of more than 12 million people, mostly in Southern Asia. However, this is still 58 million above pre-pandemic levels. There were improvements in every subregion except Western Asia, where the PoU increased from 10.2 percent in 2021 to 10.8 percent in 2022.
- ➔ A turnaround also occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the PoU fell from 7.0 percent in 2021 to 6.5 percent in 2022 – a decrease of 2.4 million in the number of people facing hunger, but still 7.2 million more than in 2019. The decrease was driven by South America and masks a notable increase in the Caribbean, from 14.7 percent in 2021 to 16.3 percent in 2022.
- ➔ A much larger proportion of the population in Africa faces hunger compared to the other regions of the world – nearly 20 percent compared with 8.5 percent in Asia, 6.5 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 7.0 percent in Oceania.
- ➔ It is projected that almost 600 million people will be chronically undernourished in 2030, pointing to the immense challenge of achieving the SDG target to eradicate hunger. This is about 119 million more than in a scenario in which neither the pandemic nor the war in Ukraine had occurred, and around 23 million more than if the war in Ukraine had not happened. Most progress is expected to occur in Asia, whereas no progress is foreseen in Latin America and the Caribbean, and hunger is projected to increase significantly in Africa by 2030.
- ➔ Following a sharp increase from 2019 to 2020, the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity at the global level (SDG Indicator 2.1.2) remained unchanged for the second year in a row but was still far above the pre-pandemic level of 25.3 percent. About 29.6 percent of the global population – 2.4 billion people – were moderately or severely food insecure in 2022, 391 million more than in 2019.
- ➔ The prevalence of severe food insecurity at the global level declined slightly from 11.7 percent in 2021 to 11.3 percent in 2022, the equivalent of 27 million fewer people. However, the number of severely food-insecure people was still about 900 million in 2022, which is 180 million more than in 2019.
- ➔ The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity rose slightly in Africa and in Northern America and Europe, and decreased non-significantly in Asia from 2021 to 2022. The only region showing encouraging progress is Latin America and the Caribbean, where moderate or severe food insecurity decreased from 40.3 percent in 2021 to 37.5 percent in 2022, the equivalent of 16.5 million fewer people in one year, mainly in South America.
- ➔ A comparison of food insecurity among rural, peri-urban and urban populations reveals that global food insecurity, at both levels of severity, is lower in urban areas. Moderate or severe food insecurity affected 33.3 percent of adults living in rural areas in 2022 compared with 28.8 percent in peri-urban areas and 26.0 percent in urban areas.
- ➔ Food insecurity affects women more than men in every region of the world. However, the gender gap in food insecurity at the global level, which had widened in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, narrowed from 3.8 percentage points in 2021 to 2.4 percentage points in 2022, suggesting that the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on women’s food insecurity have eased globally and in some regions. The gender gap diminished notably in Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean, but widened in Africa and in Northern America and Europe.
Estimates of how many people are facing hunger in the world are always the best possible approximations given the information available. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted normal data collection activities in 2020 and 2021, creating additional challenges for the assessment of the state of food insecurity in the world and inducing greater uncertainty around the estimates. While the main effects of the pandemic have receded, and data collection activities have begun to normalize, data reporting by countries was still not fully back up to speed by 2022. Thus, estimates of the global PoU (SDG Indicator 2.1.1) are presented as ranges beginning in 2020 to reflect the additional uncertainty since the pandemic.
As always, the PoU estimates for the most recent year (2022) are obtained by nowcasting the values of the three needed parameters using the most recent information available to FAO regarding the food supply and based on reasonable assumptions on the extent of inequality in access to food (Annex 2, Section A).
The assessments of the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity based on the FIES (SDG Indicator 2.1.2) are informed by official estimates as reported by countries, whenever available, and by FAO estimates based on data collected annually by the Organization through data collection service providers in over 140 different countries (see Annex 1B).
SDG Indicator 2.1.1 Prevalence of undernourishment
The assessment of global hunger in 2022, measured by the PoU (SDG Indicator 2.1.1), reveals that it remained far above pre-pandemic levels. The proportion of the world population facing chronic hunger in 2022 was about 9.2 percent, compared with 7.9 percent in 2019 (Figure 1). After increasing sharply in 2020 in the midst of the global pandemic, and rising more slowly in 2021 to 9.3 percent, the PoU ceased to increase from 2021 to 2022, providing some hope of a possible turnaround.b
FIGURE 1 Global hunger remained virtually unchanged from 2021 to 2022 but is still far above pre-COVID-19-pandemic levels
SOURCE: FAO. 2023. FAOSTAT: Suite of Food Security Indicators. In: FAO. [Cited 12 July 2023]. www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS
It is estimated that hunger affected between 691 and 783 million people in the world in 2022. Considering the projected midrange (about 735 million in 2022), 122 million more people faced hunger in 2022 than in 2019, before the pandemic.
The relative lack of change in hunger at the global level from 2021 to 2022 hides substantial differences at the regional level (Table 1, Table 2 and Figure 2). Many places in the world are still facing serious food crises (Box 1). Hunger has been on the rise in Africa since 2010, with a sharp increase in all subregions in 2020 followed by a gentler rise in 2021. In 2022, the PoU in Africa continued to rise from 19.4 percent in 2021 to 19.7 percent – the equivalent of 11 million more people in one year and nearly 57 million more since the outbreak of the pandemic. Moreover, hunger increased throughout all subregions of Africa in 2022. The PoU in Northern Africa rose from 6.9 percent to 7.5 percent, equivalent to nearly 2 million more people facing hunger in 2022. In sub-Saharan Africa, hunger increased from 22.2 percent to 22.5 percent, which translates into 9 million more people compared to 2021. The largest increase in PoU occurred in Southern Africa, at 1.1 percentage points, followed by Middle Africa with an increase of 0.6 percentage points. Marginal increases of 0.1 percentage points occurred in Western and Eastern Africa from 2021 to 2022. In terms of numbers of people facing hunger, these percentage-point increases are equivalent to about 1 million more people in Southern Africa, 3 million more in Middle Africa and also in Eastern Africa, and 2 million more in Western Africa. All subregions in Africa registered either a prevalence or a number of undernourished people well above pre-pandemic levels.
TABLE 1Prevalence of undernourishment, 2005–2022
SOURCE: FAO. 2023. FAOSTAT: Suite of Food Security Indicators. In: FAO. [Cited 12 July 2023]. www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS
TABLE 2Number of undernourished people, 2005–2022
SOURCE: FAO. 2023. FAOSTAT: Suite of Food Security Indicators. In: FAO. [Cited 12 July 2023]. www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS
FIGURE 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
SOURCE: FAO. 2023. FAOSTAT: Suite of Food Security Indicators. In: FAO. [Cited 12 July 2023]. www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS
BOX 1How does the evidence on chronic food insecurity align with the evidence on acute food insecurity in food crisis countries?
The evidence presented in this report points to the fact that, although the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) at the global level remained relatively unchanged from 2021 to 2022, hunger was on the rise in many parts of the world. The negative impacts on food security of the war in Ukraine (and other conflicts), soaring food prices and extreme weather events were felt more strongly in some places than in others. Consistent with this, the most recent edition of the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC)2 reinforces these conclusions.
The GRFC and this report are both multipartnership efforts that provide international assessments of food security; however, their objectives and geographical scope are distinct, and they rely on different data and methodologies. On the one hand, this report has the broad objective of monitoring chronic food insecurity in the entire world, on a regular basis, by reporting on SDG Indicators 2.1.1 and 2.1.2. Chronic food insecurity is defined as a structural, long-term situation of food deprivation. The PoU, for example, measures hunger (chronic undernourishment) defined as the long-term or persistent inability to meet minimum dietary energy requirements and, within a country, it is estimated to be representative of the whole population. The GRFC, on the other hand, focuses more narrowly on acute food insecurity in countries experiencing food crises for the purpose of guiding immediate humanitarian response. Acute food insecurity refers to a short-term (possibly temporary) inability to meet dietary energy requirements, related to sporadic crises that may sometimes be protracted and are of a severity that threatens lives or livelihoods. Assessments of food insecurity prioritize the use of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification/Cadre Harmonisé (IPC/CH), applied in a set of countries that are susceptible to food crisis situations and, therefore, potentially in need of humanitarian assistance.* These assessments are not statistical measurements, but rather the result of a process of convergence of evidence reached by a country team of analysts, based on the most recent available information from various sources. Within a country, rough estimates of the number of people facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity are presented that refer to the specific populations covered by the analysis, and not necessarily to the whole population at the national level.
Because of these conceptual and measurement differences, a direct comparison of figures from both reports is not possible. However, acute and chronic food insecurity are not unrelated phenomena. Repeated shocks and persistent crises can provoke situations of chronic food insecurity. Because of this, one expects some alignment, at least in trends, of the results of the two reports.
Having this in mind, the 2023 GRFC2 points to an increase of around 37 million people facing acute food insecurity (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) from 2021 to 2022 in the same 48 countries analysed in both years.** That is equivalent to an increase in the prevalence of acute food insecurity from 21.8 percent to 22.5 percent of the analysed population. An analysis of hunger (PoU) restricted to the same group of 48 countries analysed by the GRFC shows an increase of 14 million in the number of people facing chronic undernourishment, equivalent to an increase in the PoU from 20.8 percent to 21.3 percent of the combined populations of those 48 countries (Figure A). This reveals convergence in the assessments of the trends and points to the existence of persistent food crises in many parts of the world, reinforcing the need to better understand the nexus between acute and chronic food insecurity, particularly in food crisis countries.
FIGURE A ESTIMATES OF ACUTE FOOD INSECURITY FROM THE GRFC AND OF CHRONIC UNDERNOURISHMENT BASED ON THE PoU IN THE SAME 48 COUNTRIES SHOW SIMILAR TRENDS FROM 2021 TO 2022
* When recent IPC/CH is not available, alternative sources are used such as the Consolidated Approach for Reporting Indicators of Food Security or the Famine Early Warning Systems Network. These are used to approximate populations facing crisis or worse (IPC/CH 3+).
** In the 48 countries analysed in both years in the GRFC, there were differences in analysis coverage at the country level, resulting in a 15.5 percent increase in the analysed population between the two years in these countries.
The PoU estimate for Asia for 2022 points to a turnaround in the trend of hunger, which had been on the rise in the region since 2017. The PoU fell from 8.8 percent in 2021 to 8.5 percent in 2022 – a decrease of more than 12 million people, mostly in Southern Asia. However, this is still 58 million above pre-pandemic levels. Every subregion except Western Asia experienced a turnaround, with the largest improvement in Southern Asia, the subregion with the highest PoU (15.6 percent in 2022). In Western Asia, more than 2 million additional people were facing hunger in 2022 compared to 2021 – an increase of 0.6 percentage points, from 10.2 percent to 10.8 percent.
A turnaround also occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the PoU fell from 7.0 percent in 2021 to 6.5 percent in 2022 – a decrease of more than 2.4 million in the number of people facing hunger, though still 7.2 million more compared to 2019. There was a sharp increase in the Caribbean subregion from 14.7 percent in 2021 to 16.3 percent in 2022. However, notable improvements occurred in South America in the same period, where the PoU decreased from 7.0 percent to 6.1 percent, equivalent to 3.5 million people, but still 6 million above 2019 levels.
The proportion of the population facing hunger is much larger in Africa compared to the other regions of the world – nearly 20 percent compared with 8.5 percent in Asia, 6.5 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 7.0 percent in Oceania (Table 1).
While the regional prevalence estimates reveal the magnitude of the burden of hunger in each region, converting them into numbers of people indicates where most of the people facing hunger in the world live (Table 2 and Figure 3). While the PoU in Asia is less than half that in Africa, Asia is nevertheless home to the majority of people facing hunger – 402 million, representing 55 percent of the total number of undernourished people in 2022. About 38 percent (282 million) of undernourished people live in Africa and about 6 percent (43 million) in Latin America and the Caribbean.
FIGURE 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
SOURCE: FAO. 2023. FAOSTAT: Suite of Food Security Indicators. In: FAO. [Cited 12 July 2023]. www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS
Economic recovery hampered by new challenges to food security
At the end of 2021, global food security was on high alert due to lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as new and ongoing conflicts and weather-related shocks. A combination of an unequal economic recovery after a dramatic decrease in economic activity observed in 2020, and rising food, fuel and transportation prices produced by the recovery itself, thwarted progress in food security.
Just as global economic conditions appeared to be more favourable for 2022 and the prospects of a reduction in hunger and food insecurity towards pre-pandemic levels seemed possible, the outbreak of the war in Ukraine sent another shock through the global economy. As a result, the recovery observed in 2021 slowed further in 2022 and global gross domestic product (GDP) grew in 2022 by 3.4 percent, one percentage point more slowly than predicted at the beginning of 2023.3
The shock caused by the war acted mainly through the global food and agricultural markets, as it involved two major global producers of agricultural commodities: the Russian Federation and Ukraine. In 2021, either the Russian Federation or Ukraine (or both) ranked among the top three global exporters of wheat, maize, rapeseed, cake of sunflower seed, and sunflower oil.c, 4 The Russian Federation is also a prominent exporter of fertilizers. In this context, one of the main impacts of the war has been to increase international prices of food. Although global food commodity prices were rising steadily even before the war, the added uncertainty induced by the war contributed to a surge in food prices. The FAO Food Price Index jumped to an all-time high in March 2022, and although the index steadily declined throughout the year, it remained much higher than before the pandemic.5 As a result of the high international food prices, import costs of food rose, affecting especially countries that are highly dependent on food imports. The world food import bill was estimated to have reached an all-time high in 2022 of nearly USD 2 trillion, an increase of 10 percent (nearly USD 181 billion) from the 2021 level, driven mostly by higher prices.6 World fertilizer prices also soared, mainly as a result of rising energy and natural gas prices. The global agricultural input import bill was estimated to increase by 48 percent in 2022 to USD 424 billion.7 All of these factors have contributed to higher prices of food at the local and national levels, which in turn have contributed heavily to overall inflation. Inflation rose throughout 2022 in almost all economies, and global headline inflation exceeded 9 percent in the second half of the year, the highest level since 1995.8
In this context, global trends in hunger reflect the combination of two factors interplaying at the household level. First, an income effect produced by the economic recovery in 2022 likely contributed to an increase in household disposable income and improved access to food, particularly for the poorest households that suffered heavy income losses during the pandemic. Globally, employment increased by 2.3 percent in 2022 from a meagre annual growth of 0.2 percent in the period from 2020 to 2021.9 Employment growth was faster in low-income countries (LICs) and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) than in upper-middle-income countries (UMICs) and high-income countries (HICs). Concomitantly, global unemployment declined significantly in 2022 to 205 million, down from 216 million in 2021 and 235 million in 2020, but still above its 2019 level.9
The second factor affecting the trend in hunger is the price effect. Increases in food prices and general inflation can erode income gains and worsen access to food. In the short term, this is particularly true for the poorest segments of the population who spend a larger share of their income on food. In the long term, however, some households may manage to adapt their consumption patterns to lessen the impacts, and poor rural populations engaged in agriculture may even benefit from higher prices for their agricultural products.d, 10
The stalled situation in global hunger observed for 2022 is thus the result of the interaction of these two factors. The economic recovery helped to stem the rising tide of hunger at least at the global level. However, the positive effect could have been even greater without the countervailing winds caused by the global repercussions of the war in Ukraine and the price inflation for food, agricultural inputs and energy, together with other drivers of food insecurity such as conflicts and weather-related events. As a result, hunger remains far above pre-pandemic levels globally and in all regions.
At the regional level, this dynamic of income and price effect is visible in multiple subregions, with varying results. In Southern Africa, for instance, the uptick of hunger in 2022 stemmed from increasing inflation, following the upsurge in international commodity prices, as well as domestic challenges such as persistently high levels of unemployment and vulnerability to shocks.11 Although there was sustained GDP growth in 2022, this often did not translate into improved socioeconomic conditions for the poor. Agricultural production, at the same time, suffered from severe droughts and floods, and the surge in international fertilizer prices. In Middle Africa, the increase in hunger has mainly resulted from food inflation and increasing food import bills, as well as extreme climate events, which have counteracted the positive effects of economic growth, driven by buoyant oil export revenues in some countries.11
In Western Asia, many countries benefited from increased oil revenues, but these did not always translate into lower levels of hunger in 2022. Political instability in some countries and conflicts have continued to disrupt food supplies, markets and distribution systems, resulting in higher food prices and food shortages. In addition, domestic inflation has soared in several countries, making access to food more difficult.12 In Southern Asia, on the other hand, the outcome of sustained economic growth, especially in agriculture, has likely prevailed over inflation, thus contributing to an overall improvement in food security conditions. More than one country in the region has also enacted policy measures that have contributed to this overall improvement, including supplying fertilizers to farmers, providing cereal subsidies to vulnerable population groups, and reducing customs duties on imported cereals.13
In the Caribbean, more than one small island developing state has suffered from high food inflation and increased import bills, given the widespread dependence of the subregion on imported food and agricultural products. At the same time, export revenues have been declining in key sectors, including tourism, resulting in reduced disposable income and increased food insecurity.14 On the contrary, the observed decline in hunger in 2022 in South America, a net exporter of food and agricultural products, stemmed largely from positive development in labour markets, which counteracted the surge in inflation, as well as from social protection policies.14 Additionally, some countries in the region have benefited from the surge in oil and gas prices that boosted export revenues. This has translated into improved public budget resources (which could be used to finance social protection programmes) and investment in agriculture and food distribution systems.
At the country level, these countervailing forces have played out in different ways with unequal impacts on trends in hunger. A comparison across country income groups of changes in the PoU between 2019 and 2022 shows that LICs are still struggling the most to recover. Globally, 58 percent of countries had a PoU in 2022 that was still above pre-pandemic levels. However, the percentage is much higher in LICs; 77 percent of LICs have not returned to PoU levels observed in 2019, in contrast to 47 percent of UMICs (Figure 4).
FIGURE 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)
The halt in the rise in global hunger observed in 2022 is also consistent with nowcasts of poverty available for 2022.10 Projections for 2022 are that, despite an expected reduction in poverty between 2021 and 2022, the pace of reduction will further stall given the downward revised prospects of global growth in 2022 and higher prices of food, agricultural inputs and energy. It is estimated that the number of people in extreme poverty will have decreased by 5 million from 2021 to 2022, based on a scenario that takes into consideration the relatively greater impact of high food inflation among the poor.
Towards ending hunger (SDG Target 2.1): projections to 2030
As in previous editions of the report, an exercise was conducted to project how many people may be facing hunger in 2030 based on what can be inferred from available forecasts of fundamental demographic and economic variables. The projections were obtained by separately projecting each of the parameters that inform the model used to estimate the PoU (see Annex 2, Section B).
Trajectories are presented under three scenarios: “current prospects”, which aims to capture current projections of the PoU in 2030 based on the world economic prospects presented in the April 2023 edition of the International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook database;3 “projections before COVID-19”, calibrated to reflect the situation of the world economy before the pandemic, as described by the World Economic Outlook published in October 2019;15 and “projections before the war in Ukraine”, which does the same but considering the October 2021 edition of the same publication16 before the outbreak of the war.
The current scenario shows that almost 600 million people will be chronically undernourished in 2030, pointing to the immense challenge of achieving the SDG target to eradicate hunger (Figure 5). This is about 119 million more undernourished people than in the scenario in which neither the pandemic nor the war in Ukraine had occurred (the “projections before COVID-19” scenario) and around 23 million more than in the scenario where the war had not happened (the “projections before the war in Ukraine” scenario). The latter provides an indication of the additional setback the war may have caused in the global fight against hunger.
FIGURE 5 Projected numbers of undernourished indicate that the world is far off track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030
SOURCE: Authors’ (FAO) own elaboration.
Figure 5 also shows how the situation is currently expected to evolve in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The different trajectories are evident, demonstrating that practically all the progress in the fight against hunger is expected to be made in Asia, where the number of undernourished is projected to fall from the current 402 million to 242 million people by 2030. The number of undernourished is expected to remain constant in Latin America and the Caribbean and to increase significantly in Africa, where it is projected that close to 300 million people may be facing hunger in 2030. Much stronger efforts are needed to address the fundamental structural problems that afflict the African continent.
SDG Indicator 2.1.2 Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population, based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale
SDG Target 2.1 challenges the world not only to end hunger, but also to work to ensure access for all people to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round. SDG Indicator 2.1.2 – the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population, based on the FIES – tracks progress towards this ambitious goal.
New estimates of the prevalence of food insecurity based on the FIES confirm that for 2022 no progress was made on food insecurity at the global level. Following a sharp increase from 2019 to 2020, the global prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity remained unchanged for the second year in a row, far above pre-COVID-19-pandemic levels (Figure 6 and Table 3). In 2022, an estimated 29.6 percent of the global population – 2.4 billion people – were moderately or severely food insecure, meaning they did not have access to adequate food (Table 3 and Table 4). This is still 391 million more people than in 2019, before the pandemic, and 745 million more compared to 2015 when the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda was launched.
FIGURE 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
SOURCE: FAO. 2023. FAOSTAT: Suite of Food Security Indicators. In: FAO. [Cited 12 July 2023]. www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS
TABLE 3Prevalence of food insecurity at severe level only, and at moderate or severe level, based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, 2015–2022
SOURCE: FAO. 2023. FAOSTAT: Suite of Food Security Indicators. In: FAO. [Cited 12 July 2023]. www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS
More than one-third (38 percent) of people facing moderate or severe food insecurity in the world in 2022 – over 900 million – were severely food insecure, indicating that they had run out of food at times during the year and, at worst, gone an entire day or more without eating. The prevalence of severe food insecurity at the global level showed a marginal decline from 11.7 percent in 2021 to 11.3 percent in 2022, the equivalent of 27 million fewer people (Figure 6, Table 3 and Table 4). While it is encouraging that the upward trend in severe food insecurity of the past six years has not continued, the global prevalence is still far above pre-pandemic levels – equivalent to 180 million more people compared to 2019 (Table 3 and Table 4). At the global level, the slight decrease in severe food insecurity, and unchanged prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity, suggest that the gravity of the food insecurity situation of some people may have transitioned from severe to moderate from 2021 to 2022.
TABLE 4Number of people experiencing food insecurity at severe level only, and at moderate or severe level, based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, 2015–2022
SOURCE: FAO. 2023. FAOSTAT: Suite of Food Security Indicators. In: FAO. [Cited 12 July 2023]. www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS
As expected, the global trends in the prevalence of severe food insecurity are similar to the trends for the PoU (Table 1). This is because people experiencing severe food insecurity are unlikely to be able to acquire enough food to continuously fulfil their dietary energy requirements, and thus may become chronically undernourished. Both indicators provide evidence regarding the proportion of the population facing severe constraints on food access, albeit based on very different methodologies and sources of data (see Annex 1B).
Despite the lack of change in the prevalence of food insecurity at the global level, there were divergent trends at the regional level. Improvements in some regions were offset by worsening situations in others (Figure 6, Table 3 and Table 4).
The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in Africa increased by one percentage point in one year to 60.9 percent in 2022. The increase is much smaller compared to the previous year, when it rose by 4 percentage points. From 2021 to 2022, the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity rose in Eastern Africa, Middle Africa and Southern Africa by 2.4, 3.0 and 1.2 percentage points, respectively. The prevalence in 2022 ranged from 25.9 percent in Southern Africa to 78.4 percent in Middle Africa. The increase in moderate or severe food insecurity in Africa from 2021 to 2022 is mostly due to more people facing moderate food insecurity, as the rise in severe food insecurity in the region was marginal. Nevertheless, nearly one in four people in Africa (24.0 percent) was facing severe food insecurity in 2022. The prevalence of severe food insecurity rose in Northern Africa, Middle Africa, Southern Africa and Western Africa by 0.8, 1.3, 1.5 and 0.3 percentage points, respectively – the equivalent of 2.4 million more people in Northern Africa, 4.8 million more in Middle Africa, 1.1 million more in Southern Africa, and 3.6 million more in Western Africa facing severe food insecurity in 2022 compared to 2021.
A non-significant decrease in food insecurity was registered in Asia, where 24.2 percent of the population was facing moderate or severe food insecurity in 2022 compared with 24.5 percent in 2021. The situation improved somewhat in Central Asia and Western Asia, where the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity fell by 2.7 and 3.2 percentage points, respectively, even as severe food insecurity increased slightly in Western Asia. Moderate or severe food insecurity remained virtually unchanged in the other subregions of Asia, although there are still large differences in prevalence between subregions. The percentage of people facing moderate or severe food insecurity ranged from 6.2 percent in Eastern Asia to 40.3 percent in Southern Asia, which is home to more than one-third of the world’s moderately or severely food-insecure population – about 809 million people. Southern Asia also has the highest prevalence of severe food insecurity on the continent, although this did decrease by 1.6 percentage points from 2021 to 2022, the equivalent of 28.7 million people.
Latin America and the Caribbean showed encouraging progress in 2022, as the proportion of the population facing moderate or severe food insecurity decreased from 40.3 percent in 2021 to 37.5 percent in 2022, the equivalent of 16.5 million fewer people in one year. The improvement was driven by a decrease in South America, from 40.9 percent in 2021 to 36.4 percent in 2022. The prevalence of severe food insecurity also declined in South America, from 15.1 percent in 2021 to 12.7 percent in 2022. In Central America and the Caribbean, on the other hand, the food security situation deteriorated from 2021 to 2022. In the Caribbean, which is the subregion most affected by food insecurity, the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity increased from 59.5 percent to 60.6 percent, and severe food insecurity increased from 25.7 percent to 28.2 percent.
In Oceania, the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity was 13.0 percent in 2022. An estimated 3.4 percent of the population in Oceania was facing severe food insecurity in 2022, down from 4.5 percent in 2021.
In Northern America and Europe, the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity rose slightly in 2022 to 8.0 percent, while severe food insecurity remained unchanged. Moderate or severe food insecurity increased by approximately 2 percentage points in Northern Europe, reaching 6.6 percent in 2022, whereas the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity decreased by about 1 percentage point in Southern Europe to 7.5 percent.
It is interesting to compare how the regions have fared in the fight against hunger since the pandemic emerged in late 2019. Three years later, parts of Asia and Latin America appear to be rebounding, whereas Africa is still struggling to turn things around. Regardless, food insecurity levels in all regions are still far above pre-pandemic levels.
Figure 7 shows that, of a total of 2.4 billion people in the world facing food insecurity in 2022, nearly half (1.1 billion) were in Asia; 37 percent (868 million) were in Africa; 10.5 percent (248 million) lived in Latin America and the Caribbean; and around 4 percent (90 million) were in Northern America and Europe. The figure also illustrates the different proportions of severe food insecurity in relation to moderate or severe food insecurity across regions. Severe food insecurity represents a larger share of the combined total of moderate plus severe food insecurity in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean – 39.4 percent, 39.9 percent and 33.5 percent, respectively – compared with 18.8 percent in Northern America and Europe.
FIGURE 7 The concentration and distribution of food insecurity by severity differ greatly across the regions of the world
Differences in food insecurity across rural, peri-urban and urban areas
The availability of georeferenced FIES data collected by FAO in 2022 has made it possible to present, for the first time, a comparison of food insecurity in rural, peri-urban and urban populations at the global, regional and subregional levels.e The Degree of Urbanization (DEGURBA) classification, a new international standard, was used to distinguish among populations living in: i) rural areas; ii) towns and semi-dense areas (peri-urban areas); and iii) cities (urban areas), based on population density and size, in a globally comparable way.f, 17 The prevalence of food insecurity among adults within each group was then calculated.
Results show that at the global level, food security improves as the degree of urbanization increases (Figure 8).g Moderate or severe food insecurity affected 33.3 percent of adults living in rural areas in 2022 compared with 28.8 percent in peri-urban areas and 26.0 percent in urban areas. The prevalence of severe food insecurity was 12.8 percent in rural areas, 11.6 percent among peri-urban residents, and 9.4 percent among urban residents.
FIGURE 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
At the regional level, the differences across regions are interesting. Africa clearly follows the global pattern of worsening food security when moving from urban, to peri-urban, to rural areas. In Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, food insecurity is significantly higher in rural areas compared to urban areas, at both levels of severity, but the differences between peri-urban and rural areas are less clear. In Northern America and Europe, on the other hand, food insecurity, at both levels of severity is worse in urban areas than in rural areas.
These differences in regional patterns may be partially explained by looking at rural–urban differences in food insecurity by DEGURBA through a country income group lens (Figure 8). In LICs, rural and peri-urban populations are more food insecure compared to urban populations, whereas in LMICs, food insecurity is highest in rural areas but only marginally worse in peri-urban than in urban areas. The situation is markedly different in UMICs and HICs. Among UMICs, the prevalence of food insecurity, at both levels of severity, is highest in rural areas and lowest in peri-urban areas. In HICs, on the other hand, it is the urban population that is at higher risk of moderate or severe food insecurity, with virtually no difference for severe food insecurity.
Gender differences in food insecurity
Persistent gender inequalities are revealed by the new FIES data. Food insecurity is more prevalent among adult women than men in every region of the world. The gender gap in food insecurity at the global level widened considerably in 2020 and 2021 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as women were more affected by job and income losses and bore a larger responsibility for additional, unpaid caregiving duties.18, 19 Women living in rural areas were even more likely to be food insecure,20 as job and income losses were much higher for women than for men particularly in agrifood systems.21 In 2021, the gender gap reached 3.8 percentage points, with 28.6 percent of women in the world being moderately or severely food insecure compared with 24.8 percent of men (Figure 9).
FIGURE 9 Globally and in every region, the prevalence of food insecurity is higher among women than among men
For 2022, the food insecurity gap between men and women appears to have narrowed considerably at the global level, which may partially reflect a return of women to economic activities as pandemic-related restrictions were eased, and a weakening of the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on women’s food insecurity. In 2022, 27.8 percent of adult women were moderately or severely food insecure, compared with 25.4 percent of men, and the proportion of women facing severe food insecurity was 10.6 percent compared with 9.5 percent of men. The difference in the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity between men and women decreased from 3.8 percentage points in 2021 to 2.4 percentage points in 2022, and the gap for severe food insecurity narrowed from 2.4 to 1.1 percentage points (Figure 9).h
There were encouraging improvements in the gender gap in both Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean from 2021 to 2022. The gap narrowed by more than 2 percentage points for moderate or severe food insecurity in both regions, and by about 2 and 1.3 percentage points for severe food insecurity in Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean, respectively. In Africa and in Northern America and Europe, however, the gap increased marginally for moderate or severe food insecurity and remained about the same for severe food insecurity.
