The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World

About the report

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World is an annual flagship report jointly prepared by 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 Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to inform on progress towards ending hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition and to provide in-depth analysis on key challenges for achieving this goal in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The report targets a wide audience, including policy-makers, international organizations, academic institutions and the general public.

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024

SOFI 2024 provides time-critical recommendations for more efficient use of innovative financing tools, and for reforms to the food security and nutrition financing architecture. Agreement on how food security and nutrition financing is defined, along with methods for tracking, measurement and implementation, is an unmissable first step towards sustainably increasing the financing flows needed to end hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition, and to ensure access to healthy diets for all.

Key messages

1. The world is still far off track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, Zero Hunger, with the global prevalence of undernourishment persisting at nearly the same level for three consecutive years after having risen sharply in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 713 and 757 million people may have faced hunger in 2023 – one out of 11 people in the world, and one out of every five in Africa. Hunger is still on the rise in Africa, but it has remained relatively unchanged in Asia, while notable progress has been made in the Latin American and Caribbean region.
2. Progress towards the broader goal of ensuring regular access to adequate food for all has also stalled; the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity has remained unchanged for three consecutive years at the global level, although it is important to highlight progress in Latin America. In 2023, an estimated 28.9 percent of the global population – 2.33 billion people – were moderately or severely food insecure.
3. Focusing on economic access to nutritious foods, updated and improved estimates show that more than one-third of people in the world – about 2.8 billion – could not afford a healthy diet in 2022. Inequalities are evident, with low-income countries having the largest percentage of the population that is unable to afford a healthy diet (71.5 percent) compared with lower-middle-income countries (52.6 percent), upper-middle-income countries (21.5 percent) and high-income countries (6.3 percent).
4. The lack of improvement in food security and the uneven progress in the economic access to healthy diets cast a shadow over the possibility of achieving Zero Hunger in the world, six years away from the 2030 deadline. It is projected that 582 million people will be chronically undernourished at the end of the decade, more than half of them in Africa. There is the need to accelerate the transformation of our agrifood systems to strengthen their resilience to the major drivers and address inequalities to ensure that healthy diets are affordable for and available to all.
5. There has been some progress towards the goal of ending all forms of malnutrition, with improvements in the global prevalence of stunting and wasting among children under five years of age and of exclusive breastfeeding among infants under six months of age. The global prevalence of low birthweight and that of childhood overweight have been stagnant, while anaemia in women aged 15 to 49 years has increased. The world is not on track to reach any of the seven global nutrition targets by 2030.
6. Improvements in stunting, wasting and exclusive breastfeeding lay the groundwork for children to achieve their full potential for growth and development, but rising rates of obesity – exacerbating the double burden of malnutrition – foreshadow major challenges for the health and well-being of all age groups. Double-duty actions are needed which simultaneously tackle undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity by leveraging the common drivers shared by all forms of malnutrition.
7. Meeting SDG Targets 2.1 and 2.2 to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition requires increased and more cost-effective financing, but there is currently no clear picture of the financing for food security and nutrition – neither that available nor that additionally needed – for meeting these targets.
8. The wide range of definitions of financing for food security and nutrition, and the differences among them, lead to inconsistent estimates, causing issues in identifying underfinanced areas, ensuring accountability, and tracking intervention impacts. Therefore, both a common definition and mapping of financing for food security and nutrition are urgently needed, as current efforts lack adequate attention and clarity.
9. This report defines financing for food security and nutrition as the public and private financial resources, both domestic and foreign, that are directed towards eradicating hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition. They are targeted to ensure the availability, access, utilization and stability of nutritious and safe foods, and practices that favour healthy diets, as well as health, education and social protection services that enable these, and they include the financial resources that are directed towards strengthening the resilience of agrifood systems to the major drivers and underlying structural factors of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition.
10. The universal adoption of a new definition and a standardized approach to mapping financing flows oriented to meet SDG Targets 2.1 and 2.2 – as provided in this report – must capture the multidimensional nature of food security and nutrition, shifting away from the typical sector-defined boundaries that are common to these definitions.
11. A robust number for the total financing available and additionally needed to support all the efforts towards meeting SDG Targets 2.1 and 2.2 is not yet quantifiable. Financing for food security and nutrition is mostly trackable for public and official flows, but not for several private flows.
12. Public spending on food security and nutrition mostly targets food consumption, especially to support food availability and access, based on data for ten low- and middle-income countries. Governments in low-income countries appear to have low spending capacity to address the major drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition.
13. Food security and nutrition take less than a quarter of total official development assistance and other official flows. In the period from 2017 to 2021, these flows amounted to USD 76 billion per year, of which only 34 percent helped address the major drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition. These flows overwhelmingly grew more for Africa (across regions) and for lower-middle-income countries (across income groups).
14. Private financing from philanthropy, cross-border remittances from migrants invested in agrifood systems, and foreign direct investment may reach a combined total of USD 95 billion per year over the period from 2017 to 2022. Blended finance accounts for modest amounts, and net banking loans to agriculture, forestry and fishing show an almost continuous decline.
15. Irrespective of what the exact amount of financing needed might be to make the necessary progress towards SDG Targets 2.1 and 2.2, the financing gap could amount to several trillion USD. Not bridging this gap will result in social, economic and environmental consequences requiring solutions that will also cost several trillion USD. More effective use of existing financing will help reduce the financing gap.
16.  Innovative, inclusive and equitable solutions are needed to scale up financing for food security and nutrition in countries with high levels of hunger and malnutrition. However, many low- and middle-income countries face significant constraints in accessing affordable financing flows.
17. Countries with limited or moderate ability to access financing flows show, on average, a higher prevalence of undernourishment and stunting in children below five years of age, whereas a higher average of childhood overweight is observed in countries with high ability to access financing flows. Most of these countries are affected by one or more major drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition, with climate extremes the most common at all levels of ability to access financing flows.
18. For countries with limited ability to access financing flows, grants and concessional loans are the most suitable options, while countries with moderate ability can increase domestic tax revenues, linking taxation to food security and nutrition outcomes. Fostering of collaborative financing partnerships following a blended finance approach is essential, as the level of financial risk can make other sources of financing too expensive. Countries with a high ability to access financing can embed food security and nutrition objectives in instruments such as green, social, sustainable and sustainability-linked bonds.
19. The current food security and nutrition financing architecture is highly fragmented and needs a shift from a siloed approach to a more holistic perspective. Enhanced coordination among actors is needed on what is essential considering national and local policy priorities. To that aim, transparency and harmonizing data collection are crucial for improving coordination and targeting financing effectively.
20. The current food security and nutrition financing architecture is highly fragmented and needs a shift from a siloed approach to a more holistic perspective. Enhanced coordination among actors is needed on what is essential considering national and local policy priorities. To that aim, transparency and harmonizing data collection are crucial for improving coordination and targeting financing effectively.

Source : FAO

Related resources

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