One in ten people on Earth is undernourished. This is the highest number since 2009 and the third consecutive year of an increase. Approximately 768 million people – more than the population of Europe – suffered from hunger last year, an increase of 118 million (9.9%) since the outbreak of the global coronavirus pandemic.
The five UN organizations FAO, IFAD, Unicef, WFP and WHO called this rise in their joint World Food Report “a rebuke of the global promise to end hunger by 2030.” David Beasley, director of the World Food Program, said that “the road to zero hunger is blocked by conflict, climate and Covid-19.”
Thirty percent of the world population, 2.3 billion people, had no access to sufficient food throughout the year, an increase of nearly 4 percentage points in one year.
The report warns that without major changes, it will be impossible to reach the goal of ending hunger by 2030. This is one of the main targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed upon by the international community.
Although commodity prices fell in early 2020, food prices soon rose amid major shortages. The FAO food price index last month was 34 percent higher than in June 2020. A large part of the increase in hunger was “likely due to the effects of Covid-19, although the full impact of the pandemic still needs to be mapped.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recalled that despite food production rising by 300% since the mid-1960s, undernourishment remains a major problem.
The UN chief, who convened an international summit on food in September, said that in a world with such an abundance of food, it cannot be that “billions of people lack access to their daily bread.”