The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023

This report brings our organizations together again to reaffirm that, if we do not redouble and better target our efforts, our goal of ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030 will remain out of reach. Although the world is recovering from the global pandemic, this is occurring unevenly across and within countries. On top of this, the world is grappling with the consequences of the ongoing war in Ukraine, which has shaken food and energy markets.

Agrifood systems remain highly vulnerable to shocks and disruptions arising from conflict, climate variability and extremes, and economic contraction. These factors, combined with growing inequities, keep challenging the capacity of agrifood systems to deliver nutritious, safe and affordable diets for all. These major drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition are our “new normal”. We have no option but to redouble our efforts to transform agrifood systems and leverage them towards reaching the Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) targets.

Global hunger is still far above pre-pandemic levels. It is estimated that between 690 and 783 million people in the world faced hunger in 2022. This is 122 million more people than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, the increase in global hunger observed in the last two years has stalled and, in 2022, there were about 3.8 million fewer people suffering from hunger than in 2021. The economic recovery from the pandemic has contributed to this, but there is no doubt that the modest progress has been undermined by rising food and energy prices magnified by the war in Ukraine. There is no room for complacency, though, as hunger is still on the rise throughout Africa, Western Asia and the Caribbean.

No doubt, achieving the SDG target of Zero Hunger by 2030 poses a daunting challenge. Indeed, it is projected that almost 600 million people will still be facing hunger in 2030. This is 119 million more people than in a scenario in which neither the COVID-19 pandemic nor the war in Ukraine had occurred, and around 23 million people more than in a scenario where the war had not happened.

Unfortunately, our worries are not only due to hunger. In 2022, 2.4 billion people, comprising relatively more women and people living in rural areas, did not have access to nutritious, safe and sufficient food all year round. The persisting impact of the pandemic on people’s disposable income, the rising cost of a healthy diet and the overall rise in inflation also continued to leave billions without access to an affordable healthy diet. Millions of children under five years of age continue to suffer from stunting (148 million), wasting (45 million) and overweight (37 million). Despite progress in reducing child undernutrition – both stunting and wasting – the world is not on track to achieve the associated 2030 targets, and neither is any region on track to attain the 2030 target for low birthweight, so closely linked to the nutrition of women before and during pregnancy. Steady progress is only seen on levels of exclusive breastfeeding.

These numbers and trends may be a considerable disappointment for us, but for the children and people affected, they constitute an underlying fact of their lives, and this fuels our determination to keep finding solutions. Since 2017, when signs of increasing hunger first began to appear, our organizations, through this report, have provided in-depth analysis of the major drivers behind these concerning trends and evidence-based policy recommendations to address them.

We have repeatedly highlighted that the intensification and interaction of conflict, climate extremes and economic slowdowns and downturns, combined with highly unaffordable nutritious foods and growing inequalities, are pushing us off track to meet the SDG 2 targets. While we must remain steadfast in taking bold targeted actions to build resilience against these adversities, other important megatrends must be considered.

Urbanization, for example, is one such megatrend that features as the theme of this year’s report. By 2050, almost seven in ten people are projected to live in cities; but even today, this proportion is approximately 56 percent. Urbanization is shaping agrifood systems in ways we can only understand through a rural–urban continuum lens, encompassing everything from food production, food processing, and food distribution, marketing and procurement, to consumer behaviour. Due to population growth, small and intermediate cities and rural towns are increasingly bridging the space between rural areas and large metropolises. Hence, in our efforts to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in an urbanizing world, we can no longer operate on the traditional assumption of a rural–urban divide.

As the world is urbanizing, food demand and supply are changing rapidly across the rural–urban continuum, challenging our traditional thinking. In some contexts, food purchases are no longer high only among urban households but also among rural households living far from an urban centre. Moreover, consumption of highly processed foods is also increasing in peri-urban and rural areas of some countries, whereas consumption of vegetables, fruits, and fats and oils is becoming more uniform across the rural–urban continuum. These important changes are affecting people’s food security and nutrition in ways that differ depending on where they live across this continuum.

To overcome the challenges and seize the opportunities that urbanization creates, our actions, policy interventions and investments will have to be informed by a clear understanding of how the rural–urban continuum and agrifood systems interact, and how, given such interaction, urbanization affects access to affordable healthy diets, and consequently food security and nutrition. The policy approach must go beyond rural or urban silos and administrative borders and will require strong and well-coordinated governance mechanisms and institutions.

The theme of this year’s report is also timely and relevant for several other reasons. The policy recommendations can inform countries on what programmes, investments and actions can be effective and innovative for meeting the SDG 2 targets in the context of urbanization. They are also relevant for the achievement of other SDGs, including not only SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), but also SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) and SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production).

Recent discussions at the United Nations General Assembly have raised the importance of achieving Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11), as this is closely related to other important interconnected issues, including poverty eradication, climate action, migration, land degradation, economic prosperity and creation of peaceful societies. Nonetheless, the related links between urbanization and the affordability of healthy diets, and the resulting implications for food security and nutrition, have not been explored in these discussions, and we hope this report helps bridge this important gap. The report’s theme is also aligned with the New Urban Agenda, endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2016, and represents a unique contribution to create awareness about the importance of improving access to affordable healthy diets as a critical component in pursuing sustainable urbanization.

Finally, we hope that this report informs other ongoing efforts, clearly those of the coalitions of action established after the United Nations Food Systems Summit as we move towards the global stocktaking meeting to review progress in implementing the outcomes of the Summit on 24–26 July 2023, not least the Urban Food Systems Coalition, the Coalition of Action on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems for Children and All, the School Meals Coalition, and the Zero Hunger Coalition; as well as the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement.