Approximately 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, equivalent to one in every eleven people in the world and one in every five in Africa, according to the latest report State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) published by specialized agencies of the United Nations.
Released this year in the context of the Ministerial Meeting of the G20 Global Alliance Task Force against Hunger and Poverty in Brazil, the annual report shows that the world has regressed 15 years, with levels of undernutrition comparable to those of 2008-2009.
Despite some progress, an alarming number of people continue to face food insecurity and malnutrition, while global hunger levels have stabilized for three consecutive years, with approximately 152 million more hungry people than in 2019 (733 million).
Following current trends, about 582 million people will be chronically undernourished by 2030, half of them in Africa. Economic access to healthy diets remains a critical issue, affecting more than one-third of the global population: over 2.8 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2022. This disparity is more pronounced in low-income countries.
The percentage of the population facing hunger continues to rise in Africa (20.4%), while remaining stable in Asia (8.1%) — although it still represents a significant challenge, as the region is home to more than half of the people facing hunger in the world — and shows progress in Latin America (6.2%). From 2022 to 2023, hunger increased in the Middle East, the Caribbean, and most African sub-regions.
Alvaro Lario, President of IFAD, said: “The fastest route out of hunger and poverty is proven to be through investments in agriculture in rural areas. But the global and financial landscape has become much more complex since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. Ending hunger and malnutrition requires us to invest more — and more intelligently. We must bring new money into the private sector system and regain the pandemic-era appetite for ambitious global financial reform to bring cheaper financing to the countries that need it most.”