UN Says 2030 Target of Zero Hunger Under Threat as 690Mln People Chronically Hungry

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th July, 2020) The number of people suffering chronic hunger worldwide continues to grow at a pace inconsistent with the global target of achieving zero hunger by 2030, according to a new report on global food security and malnutrition by the United Nations, released on Monday.

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World is an annual report compiled jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agriculture, the UN Children's Fund, the UN World Food Programme and the World Health Organization.

"Five years after the world committed to end hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition, we are still off track to achieve this objective by 2030," the heads of the five agencies said in a forehead to the report.

According to the study, the number of chronically hungry people has been rising since 2014 and has now reached almost 690 million people, up by 10 million from 2018 and by nearly 60 million in five years. Additionally, the economic recession triggered by the coronavirus pandemic has put a minimum of 83 million more people, and possibly as many as 132 million, at a risk of going hungry by the end of the year.

The report outlined spatial disparities of this growth, saying that hunger was most widespread in Asia, but fastest growing in Africa.

In absolute figures, Asia accounted for 381 million chronically undernourished people, followed by Africa with 250 million and Latin America and the Caribbean with 48 million. Africa, on the other hand, has 19.1 percent of its population undernourished � comparing to 8.3 percent in Asia and 7.4 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean � and is set to accommodate more than half of the world's chronically hungry by 2030, if the trend continues unchanged.

"High costs and low affordability also mean billions cannot eat healthily or nutritiously," the report said, pointing out that a nutritious diet is also a component of the Zero Hunger target goal of the Agenda 2030.

Moreover, the report found that the international poverty threshold of $1.90 is at least five times less than the least expensive healthy diet costs today. As a result, at least 3 billion people worldwide cannot afford a healthy diet, including sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia where this is the case for a staggering 57 percent of the population.

The report urges for a global switch to healthy diets, saying that it will entail sizable economic benefits pertaining to decrease of health-associated costs and social costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions.