Miller Magazine Issue: 152 August 2022

36 MILLER / AUGUST 2022 NEWS The latest State of Food Security and Nutrition report shows the world is moving backwards in efforts to eliminate hunger and malnutrition. The number of people affected by hunger globally rose to as many as 828 million in 2021, an increase of about 46 million since 2020 and 150 million since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a United Nations report that provides fresh evi- dence that the world is moving further away from its goal of ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutri- tion in all its forms by 2030. The 2022 edition of The State of Food Securi- ty and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report presents updates on the food security and nutrition situation around the world, including the latest estimates of the cost and affordability of a healthy diet. The report also looks at ways in which governments can repur- pose their current support to agriculture to reduce the cost of healthy diets, mindful of the limited public resources available in many parts of the world. The report was jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The numbers paint a grim picture: • As many as 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021 – 46 million people more from a year earlier and 150 million more from 2019. • After remaining relatively unchanged since 2015, the proportion of people affected by hunger jumped in 2020 and continued to rise in 2021, to 9.8 percent of the world population. This compares with 8 per- cent in 2019 and 9.3 percent in 2020. • Around 2.3 billion people in the world (29.3 per- cent) were moderately or severely food insecure in 2021 – 350 million more compared to before the out- break of the COVID 19 pandemic. Nearly 924 million people (11.7 percent of the global population) faced food insecurity at severe levels, an increase of 207 million in two years. • The gender gap in food insecurity continued to rise in 2021 - 31.9 percent of women in the world were moderately or severely food insecure, compared to 27.6 percent of men – a gap of more than 4 percentage points, compared with 3 percentage points in 2020. Global hunger numbers rose to as many as 828 million in 2021