UN Report: Number Of People Affected By Hunger Increases Worldwide

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Intiqab Rawoof

July 5, 2022

The United Nations reported that the number of people affected by hunger globally increased to as many as 828 million people in 2021, confirming that the world is moving in the opposite direction, moving away from the sustainable development goal of eliminating all forms of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition by 2030, when the sustainable development goals are supposed to be achieved. 
This represents an increase of about 46 million people since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the global economy into a downward spiral, and another 150 million people since 2019. 
The report revealed that the proportion of people affected by hunger increased in 2020 to 9.3 percent, after remaining constant at around 8 percent since 2015, and then continued to rise to 9.8 percent in 2021. 
The report pointed out that the gender gap continues to widen in terms of food insecurity, with the proportion of women in the world who suffered from food insecurity reached 31.9 percent compared to 27.6 percent of men, reiterating that about 3.1 billion people were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2020, an increase of 112 million people from 2019, reflecting the effects of inflation in consumer food prices caused by the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures put in place to contain it. 
The report underlined that about 45 million children under the age of five suffer from wasting, which is the most deadly form of malnutrition, and increases the risk of death of children by about 12 times. 
Nearly 670 million people (8 percent of the world’s population) will still face hunger in 2030, even if the global economic recovery is taken into account, the report added. 
The report highlighted the detrimental impact of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, which disrupted the supply of basic cereals, oilseeds and fertilizers from both countries, as well as international supply chains, which led to higher prices, as well as ready-to-use therapeutic food for acutely malnourished children.