Miller Magazine Issue: 153 September 2022

44 MILLER / SEPTEMBER 2022 NEWS The world continues to lose ground in its efforts to end hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030, according to the recently-released 2022 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report. As many as 828 million people were affected by hunger glob- ally in 2021 (around 10.5% of the world population)—an increase of 46 million since the end of 2020 and of 150 million since the COVID-19 pandemic began a year earlier. The rise reflects con- tinuing post-pandemic inequalities across and within countries due to uneven patterns of economic recovery and unrecovered income losses among those hit hardest. The combination of pandemic fallout, conflict, and climate shocks has reversed previous progress, according to the report, a joint publication by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNICEF, World Food Programme, and World Health Organiza- tion (WHO). In particular, the report says, COVID-19 highlighted the fragil- ities of agrifood systems and inequalities within societies while driving up food insecurity and global hunger. Meanwhile, the ongoing war in Ukraine has further exacerbated food crises by disrupting international supply chains and pushing up the prices of grains, fertilizer, and energy. All of these problems have contributed to an increased aver- age cost of a healthy diets in all regions of the world, and has also undone previous progress in increasing food security and reducing malnutrition among children. Nearly 3.1 billion people globally were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2020, a jump of 112 million from 2019 due to the continuing stresses of pandemic and war. Pandemic fallout, conflict, and climate-related shocks such as extreme weather continue to impede food supply chains, espe- cially in low income countries and among vulnerable populations in different parts of the world. Africa bears the heaviest regional burden, with one in five people or 20.2% of the population un- dernourished compared to 9.1% in Asia, 8.6% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 5.8% in Oceania, and 2.5% in Northern Amer- ica and Europe combined. The report projects that if current trends continue—with only eight years remaining to achieve all the Sustainable Develop- ment Goals (SDGs)—nearly 670 million people or 8% of the world population will still be undernourished and facing hunger The world continues to lose ground in its efforts to end hunger