The global assessment of the state of food security and progress towards achieving the hunger and food insecurity targets

Abstract

This scientific approach presents an updated global assessment of food insecurity and nutrition for up to the year 2021 and a scientific approach on progress towards meeting SDG Targets 1 and 2 ending hunger and ensuring access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food for all people all year round and eradicating all forms of malnutrition. Despite hopes that the world would emerge more quickly from the crisis and food security would begin to recover from the pandemic in 2021, the pandemic held its grip and even tightened it in some parts of the world. The rebound of gross domestic product (GDP) growth observed in most countries in 2021 did not translate into gains in food security in the same year. Enormous challenges are still faced by those who continue to be the most affected: those with less wealth, lower and more unstable incomes and poorer access to critical basic services. Another crisis is unfolding as this scientific approach is being written with potentially sobering implications for global food security and nutrition: the war in Ukraine. Although the statistics presented in this scientific approach represent the state of food security and nutrition up until 2021, the direct and indirect effects of the conflict in 2022 will have multiple implications for global agricultural markets through the channels of trade, production and prices. Ultimately, this casts a shadow over the state of food security and nutrition for many countries, in particular those that are already facing hunger and food crisis situations, and poses an additional challenge for achieving the SDG 2 targets of ending hunger and ensuring access to adequate food for all (SDG Target 1) and of eliminating all forms of malnutrition (SDG Target 2).