SDG’s Zero Hunger Target Is in Crisis Amid Pandemic: UN Report

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development puts forward a transformational vision recognizing that our world is changing, bringing with it new challenges that must be overcome if we are to live in a world without hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in any of its forms. But the COVID-19 pandemic is a health and humanitarian crisis threatening the food security and nutrition of millions of people around the world. Hundreds of millions of people were already suffering from hunger and malnutrition before the virus hit. Measures to control or mitigate COVID-19 outbreaks are already affecting global food supply chains.

Climate change and increasing climate variability and extremes are affecting agricultural productivity, food production and natural resources, with impacts on food systems and rural livelihoods. More than 820 million people in the world are still hungry today, underscoring the immense challenge of achieving the Zero Hunger target by 2030. Hunger is rising in almost all sub regions of Africa and, to a lesser extent, in Latin America and Western Asia. These are findings of a United Nations report.

According to a United Nations report published on Monday, nearly one in nine people in the world are going hungry, with the Coronavirus pandemic exacerbating already worsening trends this year. “After decades of a long decline, the number of people suffering from hunger has been slowly increasing since 2014,” mentioned the State of Food Security and Nutrition within the World annual report.

Nearly 690 million people, or 8.9% of people around the globe are hungry, the report found. That number rose by 10 million people in just one year to 2019, and by 60 million in the past five years. Concerning nutrition indicators, if current trends continue, we will meet neither the 2030 SDG Target to halve the number of stunted children nor the 2025 World Health Assembly target to reduce the prevalence of low birth weight by 30%, found the study.

By late 2020, we can expect to see further material impacts in peoples’ lives through low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high-income economies. Also, it is estimated that by 2030, over 890 million people could be affected by hunger or 9.8% of the world’s population.

Five United Nations agencies co-authored the report: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The World Food Programme estimates that an additional 130 million people could fall into the food insecure category. Hunger is on the rise in almost all African sub regions, making Africa as the region with the highest prevalence of undernourishment, at almost 20%. Considering all people in the world affected by moderate levels of food insecurity together with those who suffer from hunger, it is estimated that over 2 billion people do not have regular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food, including 8% of the population in Northern America and Europe.

“A key reason why millions of people around the world suffer from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition is that they cannot afford the cost of healthy diets,” found the report.

Current patterns in food consumption are estimated to result in health costs of over $1.3 trillion per year by 2030. But healthier diets could lower those costs by up to 97%, the report estimated

This report calls for action on two fronts: The first being, safeguarding food security and nutrition through economic and social policies that help counteract the effects of economic slowdowns or downturns, including guaranteeing to fund of social safety nets and ensuring universal access to health and education; and, the second, tackling existing inequalities at all levels through multi sectoral policies that make it possible to more sustainably escape from food insecurity and malnutrition. The report is known as an “urgent rebalancing of agricultural policies and incentives.”