Why do more than 800 million people live with hunger?

Ten percent of the world’s population does not have enough to eat, the highest number in more than a decade.

Hunger levels are rising around the world.

Up to 828 million people, or 10 percent of the world’s population, go to bed hungry every night, 46 million more than the previous year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Of those affected by hunger, two thirds are women and 80 percent live in areas prone to climate change.

To raise awareness about world hunger levels, The Hunger Project, a non-profit organization, designated May 28 as World Hunger Day.

Hunger is a debilitating state that occurs when the body is deprived of food for a prolonged period.

Prolonged periods of starvation can lead to health problems and lifelong physical and cognitive damage, especially among children.

Malnutrition extends beyond caloric intake to indicate deficiencies in energy and protein, as well as vital vitamins and minerals.

After a decade of steady decline, world hunger has witnessed an upward trend in recent years. Between 2019 and 2021, the number of undernourished people increased by more than 150 million, mainly due to conflict, climate change, economic crises and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The cost of food has also increased. Between 2019 and 2022, the FAO Food Price Index (FPI), which measures the change in world prices for a basket of food products that includes sugar, meat, grains, dairy and vegetable oil, increased from 95, 1 points to 143.7 points.

“Even when world prices for food commodities increased, the increases at the country level differ as countries employ different policies,” says Monika Tothova, an economist in FAO’s Trade and Markets division.

“Many countries, for example, employ consumer subsidies for selected products, fixing the price for consumers and protecting them from fluctuations in global markets, at the expense of national budgets.”

The latest United Nations report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report found that most of the world’s undernourished population lives in Asia, where some 425 million people went hungry in 2021. However, the prevalence of hunger is highest in Africa, with 278 million affected that year.

The number of people experiencing acute food shortages, which measures a person’s inability to consume adequate food and immediately endangers their lives or livelihoods as a result, has increased for the fourth year in 2022, with 258 million people. people facing acute hunger, according to the 2023 edition of the Global Report on the Food Crisis.

“Economic crises have overtaken conflict as the main driver of acute food insecurity and malnutrition in several major food crises,” says Tothova.

“Cumulative global economic crises, including rising food prices and severe market disruptions, undermine countries’ resilience and ability to respond to food crises.”

In 2022, the war between Russia and Ukraine, two of the world’s largest producers of staple grains, oilseeds, and fertilizers, caused massive disruptions in international supply chains that pushed up prices for grains, fertilizers, and energy. This led to the global FPI reaching its highest level on record in 2022.

Projections of the future outlook for world hunger suggest that hunger will persist, with more devastating effects from extreme weather events.