The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI – 2021)

KEY MESSAGES

• After remaining virtually unchanged for five years, the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) increased 1.5 percentage points in 2020 – reaching a level of around 9.9 percent, heightening the challenge of achieving the Zero Hunger target by 2030. Between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020, around 118 million more than in 2019. Close to 12 percent of the global population was severely food insecure in 2020, representing 928 million people – 148 million more than in 2019
• While the global prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity has been slowly on the rise since 2014, the estimated increase in 2020 was equal to that of the previous five years combined. Nearly one in three people in the world (2.37 billion) did not have access to adequate food in 2020 – an increase of almost 320 million people in just one year. The high cost of healthy diets coupled with persistent high levels of income inequality put healthy diets out of reach for around 3 billion people, especially the poor, in every region of the world in 2019.
• Globally, the world is not on track to achieve targets for any of the nutrition indicators by 2030. It is estimated that 22.0 percent (149.2 million) of children under 5 years of age were affected by stunting, 6.7 percent (45.4 million) were suffering from wasting and 5.7 percent (38.9 million) were overweight. An estimated 29.9 percent of women aged 15 to 49 years in 2019 around the world are affected by anaemia. Adult obesity is increasing sharply in all regions.
• The reversal in the PoU trends in 2014 and continuous increase are largely attributed to countries affected by conflict, climate extremes and economic downturns (now exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic), and to countries with high income inequality.  Between 2017 and 2019, the PoU increased by 4 percent in countries affected by one or more of these major drivers while it decreased by 3 percent in countries not affected by them.
• Drivers that are external (e.g. conflicts or climate shocks) and internal (e.g. low productivity and inefficient food supply chains) to food systems are pushing up the cost of nutritious foods which, combined with low incomes, are increasing the unaffordability of healthy diets, particularly in countries affected by multiple drivers.
• When transformed with greater resilience to specifically address the major drivers, food systems can provide affordable healthy diets that are sustainable and inclusive, and become a powerful driving force towards ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms, for all.
• Depending on context, there are six pathways to follow towards food systems transformation: integrating humanitarian, development and peacebuilding policies in conflict-affected areas; scaling up climate resilience across food systems; strengthening resilience of the most vulnerable to economic adversity; intervening along the food supply chains to lower the cost of nutritious foods; tackling poverty and structural inequalities, ensuring interventions are pro-poor and inclusive; and strengthening food environments and changing consumer behaviour to promote dietary patterns with positive impacts on human health and the environment.
• Given that most food systems are affected by more than one driver, the formulation of comprehensive portfolios of policies, investments and legislation may be elaborated along several pathways simultaneously. This will allow for maximizing their combined effects on food systems transformation, exploiting win-win solutions and mitigating undesirable trade-offs.
• Coherence in the formulation and implementation of policies and investments among food, health, social protection and environmental systems is also essential to build on synergies towards more efficient and effective food systems solutions. The UN Food Systems Summit 2021 will bring forward a series of concrete actions to support a transformation of the world's food systems.