SDG goals under threat as hunger hits home
Published:Friday | July 14, 2023 | 12:06 AM
If trends remain as they are, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ending hunger by 2030 will not be reached, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Wednesday when the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World was released.
According to the report, over 122 million more people are facing hunger in the world since 2019 due to the pandemic and repeated weather shocks and conflicts, including the war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, President of IFAD Alvaro Lario noted that a world without hunger is possible but what is missing are the investments and political will to implement solutions at scale.
“We can eradicate hunger if we make it a global priority. Investments in small-scale farmers and in their adaptation to climate change, access to inputs and technologies, and access to finance to set up small agribusinesses can make a difference. Small-scale producers are part of the solution. Properly supported, they can produce more food, diversify production, and supply both urban and rural markets – feeding rural areas and cities nutritious and locally grown food,” he told Wednesday’s press conference.
DEEPENING FOOD CRISES
The 2023 edition of the report reveals that between 691 and 783 million people faced hunger in 2022, with a mid-range of 735 million. This represents an increase of 122 million people compared to 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
While global hunger numbers have stalled between 2021 and 2022, there are many places in the world facing deepening food crises. Progress in hunger reduction was observed in Asia and Latin America, but hunger was still on the rise in Western Asia, the Caribbean and throughout all sub-regions of Africa in 2022. Africa remains the worst-affected region with one in five people facing hunger on the continent, more than twice the global average.
“There are rays of hope, some regions are on track to achieve some 2030 nutrition targets. But overall, we need an intense and immediate global effort to rescue the Sustainable Development Goals. We must build resilience against the crises and shocks that drive food insecurity – from conflict to climate,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres through a video message during the launch of the report at the UN Headquarters in New York.
CHILDREN SUFFERING
Meanwhile, millions of children under five continue to suffer from malnutrition: in 2022, 148 million children under five years of age (22.3 per cent) were stunted, 45 million (6.8 per cent) were wasted, and 37 million (5.6 per cent) were overweight.
Progress has been seen in exclusive breastfeeding with 48 per cent of infants under six months of age benefiting from this practice, close to the 2025 target. However, more concerted efforts will be required to meet the 2030 malnutrition targets.
The report also looks at increased urbanisation as a ‘megatrend’ affecting how and what people eat. With almost seven in ten people projected to live in cities by 2050, governments and others working to tackle hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition must seek to understand these urbanisation trends and account for them in their policymaking.
In particular, the simple rural and urban divide concept is no longer sufficient to understand the ways in which urbanisation is shaping agrifood systems. A more complex rural-urban continuum perspective is needed considering both the degree of connectivity that people have and types of connections that exist between urban and rural areas.