690 mln and rising: World hunger worsening even before COVID-19 – study

Nearly 690 million people, or 8.9% of the world population, are undernourished, up by 10 million people in one year, according to a report released last week.

“If this trend continues, the number of undernourished people will exceed 840 million by 2030,” said the study from the United Nations’ FAO and UNICEF, as well as the World Food Programme, World Health Organization, and International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The study said that preliminary projections suggests the COVID-19 pandemic may add an additional 83 to 132 million people to the ranks of the undernourished in 2020.

“Hence, the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger, even without the negative effects that COVID-19 will likely have on hunger,” it added.

Africa and Asia are home to the most number of undernourished.

The statistic is around 19.1% in Africa, or more than 250 million undernourished people, up from 17.6% in 2014.

Asia is home to more than half of the total undernourished people in the world – an estimated 381 million in 2019. Yet, this is 8.3% of the region, and below the world average of 8.9%. “Asia has shown progress in reducing the number of hungry people in recent years, down by 8 million since 2015,” said the study.

Beyond hunger, a growing number of people have had to reduce the quantity and quality of the food they consume. 2 billion people, or 25.9% of the global population, experienced hunger or did not have regular access to nutritious and sufficient food in 2019.

“It is unacceptable that, in a world that produces enough food to feed its entire population, more than 1.5 billion people cannot afford a diet that meets the required levels of essential nutrients and over 3 billion people cannot even afford the cheapest healthy diet,” said the study.

“Countries will need a rebalancing of agricultural policies and incentives towards more nutrition sensitive investment and policy actions all along the food supply chain to reduce food losses and enhance efficiencies at all stages,” it added.

ISLAMIC COUNTRIES

Among the member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) with available data, Chad has the highest prevalence of undernourishment as a proportion of its population from 2017-2019 – 39.6%, according to the study.

It is followed by Mozambique with 32.6%, Afghanistan with 29.9%, Sierra Leone with 26%, and Iraq with 23.7%.

There are several Islamic countries with prevalence of less than 2.5%, including Azerbaijan, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Kuwait,  Tunisia, and Turkey.

Key Islamic economies Saudi Arabia had 4.8% prevalence of undernourishment from 2017-2019, UAE 3.1%, Malaysia 3%, and Indonesia 9%.

OIC countries have “substantial limitations in building robust food systems” with only the GCC countries and Malaysia among the top 45 most food secure countries in the world, said a study published in October 2019 by DinarStandard, the parent company of Salaam Gateway, for the OIC’s COMCEC.

Developing sustainable food systems is a top priority across the OIC and is fundamentally tied to the future economic prosperity of its member states, said the DinarStandard study.

It gave five core policy recommendations for OIC countries to strengthen their food systems, including gathering country-level detailed information of where gaps exist in the food system, dedication of more funds to support food system stability, and trade liberalisation among member states.

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