According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, which five UN organizations collaborated on, 673 million people, or 8.2% of the global population, experienced hunger in 2024, down from 8.5 percent in 2023.
The organizations include the World Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The organizations claimed that the report neglected to fully account for the effects of acute crises brought on by specific events and wars, including Israel’s occupation of Gaza. It focused on chronic, long-term issues.
In remarks made by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres via video link from a UN food summit in Ethiopia on Monday, Guterres stated that “hunger further feeds future instability and undermines peace.”
Since Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2, malnutrition has reached “alarming levels,” according to WHO.
Despite UN and aid organizations’ warnings about widespread starvation, the blockade was partially lifted in May, but only a small amount of aid has been allowed to enter since then.
South America and southern Asia experience lower rates of hunger.
According to the UN report, South America and southern Asia reported the most significant progress in 2024.
The hunger rate in South America decreased from 4.2 percent in 2023 to 3.8 percent in 2024. It decreased from 12.2 percent to 11.1% in southern Asia.
According to Maximo Torero, the FAO’s chief economist, the country’s progress was fueled by increased agricultural productivity and social programs like school meals, according to Reuters’ news agency.
More people in southern Asia are now eating healthier foods, according to new data from India.
The overall hunger rate for 2024 was still higher than the 7.5% level before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019.
In Africa, hunger is more pervasive.
In Africa, the situation was drastically different because productivity increased while conflict and extreme weather caused the country’s population to grow.
More than one in five people on the continent, or 307 million people, were chronically undernourished in 2024, which indicates that hunger is more prevalent than it was 20 years ago.
According to the most recent projection, 512 million people worldwide could be chronically undernourished by 2030, with nearly 60% of them occurring in Africa, according to the report.
The FAO’s Torero reaffirmed that “we must urgently reverse this trajectory.”
Africans who are unable to afford a healthy diet are a major source of stress. The number increased in Africa from 864 million to just over one billion during the same time, while the global figure decreased from 2.76 billion in 2019 to 2.26 billion in 2024.
On the continent’s 1.5 billion people, the vast majority of Africans are unable to eat well.
Inequalities
The UN report also cited “persistent inequalities,” which were most acute among women and rural communities last year and increased over the course of 2023.
Millions of people are malnourished or go hungry because safe and nutritious food is not readily available, accessible, or, more frequently, not affordable, according to the statement.
According to the report, the gap between global food price inflation and overall inflation reached its highest point in January 2023, increasing the cost of diets and hurting low-income countries the most.
Source: Aljazeera
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