Advertisement
11.09.2018
Global hunger continues to rise, new UN report says
New evidence continues to signal that the number of hungry people in the world is growing, reaching 821 million in 2017 or one in every nine people, according to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018 released today. Limited progress is also being made in addressing the multiple forms of malnutrition, ranging from child stunting to adult obesity, putting the health of hundreds of millions of people at risk.
Hunger has been on the rise over the past three years, returning to
levels from a decade ago. This reversal in progress sends a clear
warning that more must be done and urgently if the Sustainable
Development Goal of Zero Hunger is to be achieved by 2030.
The
situation is worsening in South America and most regions of Africa,
while the decreasing trend in undernourishment that characterized Asia
seems to be slowing down significantly.
The annual UN report
found that climate variability affecting rainfall patterns and
agricultural seasons, and climate extremes such as droughts and floods,
are among the key drivers behind the rise in hunger, together with
conflict and economic slowdowns.
"The alarming signs of
increasing food insecurity and high levels of different forms of
malnutrition are a clear warning that there is considerable work to be
done to make sure we ‘leave no one behind' on the road towards achieving
the SDG goals on food security and improved nutrition," the heads of
the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund
for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF),
the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO)
warned in their joint foreword to the report.
"If we are to achieve a world without hunger and malnutrition in all
its forms by 2030, it is imperative that we accelerate and scale up
actions to strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of food
systems and people's livelihoods in response to climate variability and
extremes," the leaders said.
The impact of climate variability and extremes on hunger
Changes
in climate are already undermining production of major crops such as
wheat, rice and maize in tropical and temperate regions and, without
building climate resilience, this is expected to worsen as temperatures
increase and become more extreme.
Analysis in the report shows
that the prevalence and number of undernourished people tend to be
higher in countries highly exposed to climate extremes. Undernourishment
is higher again when exposure to climate extremes is compounded by a
high proportion of the population depending on agricultural systems that
are highly sensitive to rainfall and temperature variability.
Temperature anomalies over agricultural cropping areas continued to be
higher than the long-term mean throughout 2011-2016, leading to more
frequent spells of extreme heat in the last five years. The nature of
rainfall seasons is also changing, such as the late or early start of
rainy seasons and the unequal distribution of rainfall within a season.
The harm to agricultural production contributes to shortfalls
in food availability, with knock-on effects causing food price hikes
and income losses that reduce people's access to food.
Slow progress on ending all forms of malnutrition
Poor progress has been made in reducing child stunting, the report
says, with nearly 151 million children aged under five too short for
their age due to malnutrition in 2017, compared to 165 million in 2012.
Globally, Africa and Asia accounted for 39 percent and 55 percent of all
stunted children, respectively.
Prevalence of child wasting
remains extremely high in Asia where almost one in 10 children under
five has low weight for their height, compared to just one in 100 in
Latin America and the Caribbean.
The report describes as
"shameful" the fact that one in three women of reproductive age globally
is affected by anaemia, which has significant health and development
consequences for both women and their children. No region has shown a
decline in anaemia among women of reproductive age, and the prevalence
in Africa and Asia is nearly three times higher than in North America.
Rates of exclusive breastfeeding in Africa and Asia are 1.5 times
higher than those in North America where only 26 percent of infants
under six months receive breastmilk exclusively.
The other side of hunger: obesity on the rise
Adult obesity is worsening, and more than one in eight adults in the
world is obese. The problem is most significant in North America, but
Africa and Asia are also experiencing an upward trend, the report shows.
Undernutrition and obesity coexist in many countries, and can
even be seen side by side in the same household. Poor access to
nutritious food due to its higher cost, the stress of living with food
insecurity, and physiological adaptations to food deprivation help
explain why food-insecure families may have a higher risk of overweight
and obesity.
Call for action
The
report calls for implementing and scaling up interventions aimed at
guaranteeing access to nutritious foods and breaking the
intergenerational cycle of malnutrition. Policies must pay special
attention to groups who are the most vulnerable to the harmful
consequences of poor food access: infants, children aged under five,
school-aged children, adolescent girls, and women.
At the same
time, a sustainable shift must be made towards nutrition-sensitive
agriculture and food systems that can provide safe and high-quality food
for all.
The report also calls for greater efforts to build
climate resilience through policies that promote climate change
adaptation and mitigation, and disaster risk reduction.
Further reading
