The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 (SOFI 2022), a FAO annual flagship publication series that monitors progress towards globally agreed food security and nutrition targets and jointly produced by five UN agencies (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO) was recently released. 
 
With the permission of the FAO Liaison Office in Japan, we would like to share with you excerpts of the key messages of SOFI 2022 regarding the food and nutrition situation.　　　

• Despite hopes that the world would emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and food security would begin to improve, world hunger rose further in 2021. The increase in global hunger in 2021 reflects exacerbated inequalities across and within countries due to an unequal pattern of economic recovery among countries and unrecovered income losses among those most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

• After remaining relatively unchanged since 2015, the prevalence of undernourishment jumped from 8.0 to 9.3 percent from 2019 to 2020 and rose at a slower pace in 2021 to 9.8 percent. Between 702 and 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021. The number has grown by about 150 million since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic – 103 million more people between 2019 and 2020 and 46 million more in 2021.

• Projections are that nearly 670 million people will still be facing hunger in 2030 – 8 percent of the world population, which is the same as in 2015 when the 2030 Agenda was launched.

• After increasing sharply in 2020, the global prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity remained mostly unchanged in 2021, but severe food insecurity rose higher, reflecting a deteriorating situation for people already facing serious hardships. Around 2.3 billion people in the world were moderately or severely food insecure in 2021, and 11.7 percent of the global population faced food insecurity at severe levels.

•  Globally in 2020, an estimated 22 percent of children under five years of age were stunted, 6.7 percent were wasted, and 5.7 percent were overweight. Children in rural settings and poorer households, whose mothers received no formal education, were more vulnerable to stunting and wasting. Children in urban areas and wealthier households were at higher risk of overweight.

• Steady progress has been made on exclusive breastfeeding, with 43.8 percent of infants under six months of age exclusively breastfed worldwide in 2020, up from 37.1 percent in 2012, but improvement must be accelerated to meet the 2030 target. Infants residing in rural areas, in poorer households, who are female and whose mothers received no formal education are more likely to be breastfed.

• Globally in 2019, nearly one in three women aged 15 to 49 years (571 million) were affected by anaemia, with no progress since 2012. Anaemia affects more women in rural settings, in poorer households and who have received no formal education.

•  Almost 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2020. This is 112 million more than in 2019, reflecting the inflation in consumer food prices stemming from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures put in place to contain it.

• The recent setbacks indicate that policies are no longer delivering increasing marginal returns in reducing hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms. Governments where the economy is fragile are also facing fiscal constraints to transform agrifood systems. This is the time for governments to start examining their current support to food and agriculture.

The FAO Liaison Office in Japan, in collaboration with four other UN agencies, will hold an event (with simultaneous interpretation in English and Japanese) for the Japanese audience on July 15. Please register at the following website.

https://www.fao.org/japan/announcements/2022/7152022/jp/

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022  (SOFI 2022): Japan Launch

Date: 15 July 2022 (Friday) 15:30-17:00 (JST)
Venue: Online (Zoom webinar)
Language: Japanese / English (simultaneous interpretation)

Contributors: IIYAMA Miyuki (Director, Information Program) and SHIRATORI Sakiko (Information and Public Relations Office)