The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently released its “State of Food Security and Nutrition Report 2024”, indicating that the drive to end global hunger has stalled. According to the report, more than 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, 1/11 globally and 1/5 or 20% in Africa driven mostly by conflict, climate change and economic crises. The report which is jointly prepared by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO tracks progress made with SDG 2 which seeks to end global hunger by 2030.

The report noted that although progress has been made in some regions, particularly Latin America, the situation has deteriorated globally. With current trends, 582 million people will be chronically malnourished by 2030, 50 percent from Africa alone. Consequently, “the objective to ensure regular access to adequate food has stalled over the past three years with 29% or 2.3 billion people experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023.”

In stark contrast of realities across regions and countries, the report noted that “71.5% of people in low income countries and 6.31% of people in high income countries couldn’t afford a healthy diet in 2023.”

A granular look at regional trends further indicate that while hunger continues to worsen in Africa, little has changed in Asia whereas Latin America has improved. South America has a “very developed social protection program” allowing targeted intervention which doesn’t exist in Africa.

Our Global Executive Director, Maurice Ekpong, was a guest on SOUQ News TV to discuss this report. Click the following link to watch a recording of the live TV program: https://lnkd.in/eMaAY6nF