According to a recent UN report, the number of people suffering from hunger has increased by nearly 150 million since the coronavirus outbreak. The newest UN global hunger report shows that 828 million people worldwide were on the list in 2021, an increase of 46 million from the year before. This shows that the aim of ending hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition by 2030 remains a long way off.
“After remaining largely stable since 2015, the percentage of the world’s population that experiences hunger increased in 2020 and did so again in 2021, reaching 9.8%. According to the United Nations’ State of Food Security and Nutrition report, this compared to 8% in 2019 and 9.3% in 2020.
Nearly 29.3% of the world’s population, or about 2.3 billion people, were “moderately or severely food insecure in 2021,” the report said. The number is astounding, to put it mildly, and suggests that a third of the world is impacted. The number was 350 million more than it was prior to the epidemic. 924 million people, or around 11% of the population, “experienced food insecurity at severe levels.”
The gender discrepancy is also obvious. In contrast to 27.6% of men, almost 31.9% of women worldwide experienced moderate to severe food insecurity. This 4 percentage point margin is greater than the 3 percent difference in 2021.
The report includes a reflection on the rising costs of necessities as well; by 2020, roughly 3.1 billion people will not be able to afford a healthy diet. Under five year old children worldwide experienced wasting in over 45 million cases. This type of malnutrition is thought to be the deadliest; it can raise a child’s risk of dying by up to 12 times.
The heads of the five UN agencies (2) noted in this year’s Foreword, “This report frequently underscores the escalation of these primary drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition: conflict, climate extremes, and economic shocks, along with widening disparities. “The question at hand is not whether or whether adversities will continue to occur, but rather how we must act more courageously to create resilience against subsequent shocks.”
