A recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, titled ‘Statistical Yearbook 2020’ released on October 20, shows that approximately 9 percent of the world population suffered from hunger in 2019.
According to the report, the global level of prevalence of undernourishment has been increasing since 2014, after a decade-long decline.
“Nearly 9 percent of the world population suffered from hunger in 2019. The situation is most alarming in Africa, where the prevalence of undernourishment is the highest among all regions and has shown a steady increase since 2014”.
The report pointed out that, by 2019, almost 20 percent of the population in Africa were undernourished. The prevalence of undernourishment in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as in Oceania, has also shown a slight increase since 2014. In Asia, the prevalence of undernourishment has been mostly declining since 2002, although it remains the second highest among all regions (8.3 percent in 2019).
Almost 690 million people in the world were still hungry in 2019, as per the report. According to the FAO, this is 121 million people, or 15 percent less than in 2000.
According to the FAO, even though its prevalence of undernourishment is the second highest, Asia is home to 55 percent of the world’s hungry people due to its large population base, and the two countries with the largest number of hungry people are in Asia.
However, the number of hungry people in Asia declined by 29 percent, or 154 million, between 2000 and 2019. In Latin America and the Caribbean, 48 million people were undernourished in 2019, a 17 percent decrease compared with 2000 equivalent to 10 million people.
By contrast, the hungry population increased by 51 million, or 26 percent, between 2000 and 2019 in Africa, to 250 million. It also increased by 26 percent in Oceania, where an additional 0.5 million people became undernourished during the 2000–2019 period.
In 2019, 9.7 percent of the world population (746 million people) were exposed to severe food insecurity based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES). This number and the levels over the 2014–2019 period, the FAO said “are broadly consistent with those of the prevalence of undernourishment, confirming that these two indicators complement each other as they both measure the extent of severe food deprivation”.
As one of the official Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators, the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity provides additional information on people who do not have regular access to nutritious and sufficient food, even if they are not necessarily suffering from hunger.
“In 2019, it is estimated that an additional 16.2 percent of the world population, or 1.3 billion people, have experienced food insecurity at moderate levels. This brings the total estimates for moderate or severe food insecurity in 2019 to 25.9 percent of the world population, or 2 billion people.
“Moderate or severe food insecurity is much higher in Africa than in any other part of the world, affecting more than half the population in 2019. This is followed by Latin America (32 percent), Asia (22 percent), Oceania (14 percent) and Northern America and Europe (8 percent)”, the report reveals.
