The number of people facing acute hunger and in need of urgent food, nutrition, and livelihood assistance increased to 258 million in 2022, a 34% rise from the previous year’s 193 million, according to the Global Report on Food Crisis released on May 2, 2023. The report was produced by the Food Security Information Network and launched by the Global Network Against Food Crisis, an international alliance of the United Nations, the European Union, and other agencies working to address food crises. The report indicated that people in seven countries, namely Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen, were on the verge of starvation. More than half of the people who faced acute hunger were in Somalia.
The number of people facing acute food insecurity in 58 countries and territories in 2022 – 258 million – was the highest in the seven-year history of the report, indicating a worsening trend in global acute food insecurity. The report’s severity of the food crisis increased to 22.7% in 2022 from 21.3% in 2021, but much of the growth reflected an increase in the population analyzed. Acute food insecurity refers to a person’s inability to access adequate food, putting their lives or livelihoods in immediate danger.
The report indicates that the world has failed to progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, which aims to end hunger and achieve food security and improved nutrition by 2030. “More than a quarter of a billion people are now facing acute levels of hunger, and some are on the brink of starvation. That’s unconscionable,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in the report’s foreword.
The main drivers of this crisis were economic shocks, conflict/insecurity, and weather/climate extremes. Economic shocks, including the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 and the repercussions of the war in Ukraine, surpassed conflict as the primary driver of acute food insecurity and malnutrition in several major food crises. Conflict/insecurity was the most significant driver in 19 countries/territories, while weather/climate extremes were the primary driver of acute food insecurity in 12 countries.
The report also revealed that over 35 million children under five years of age suffered from wasting or acute malnutrition in 30 of the 42 main food crisis contexts analyzed in the report, with 9.2 million of them experiencing severe wasting, the most life-threatening form of undernutrition and a significant contributor to increased child mortality.
