With 735 million people hungry, UN says world is 'off track' to meet its
2030 goal
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[July 13, 2023]
By Leah Douglas
(Reuters) - About 735 million people worldwide faced chronic hunger in
2022, a figure much higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic and which
threatens progress towards a global goal to end hunger by 2030, said the
United Nations on Wednesday.
A multi-year upward trend in hunger rates leveled off last year as many
countries recovered economically from the pandemic, but the war in
Ukraine and its pressure on food and energy prices offset some of those
gains, the U.N. said in its annual State of Food Security and Nutrition
in the World (SOFI) report.
The result is that an estimated 122 million more people were hungry in
2022 than in 2019 and the world is "far off track" to meet the U.N.'s
Sustainable Development Goal of ending hunger by 2030, said the report.
Instead, the report projects that 600 million people will be
undernourished in 2030.
"We are seeing that hunger is stabilizing at a high level, which is bad
news," said Maximo Torero Cullen, chief economist of the U.N.'s Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO), in an interview with Reuters.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Jul/13/images/ads/current/LPL_small%201.gif)
The main drivers of global hunger in recent years were conflict-driven
disruption to livelihoods, climate extremes that threatened agricultural
production, and economic hardship exacerbated by the pandemic, the
report said.
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![](../images/071323PIX/health41.jpg)
Residents pick up free groceries at a
food pantry run by La Colaborativa, as the U.S. is cutting benefits
delivered through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP) by the end of March which kept millions from going hungry
through the COVID-19 pandemic, in Chelsea, Massachusetts, U.S.,
March 8, 2023. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Jul/13/images/ads/current/peasley_lda_051513.png) Some parts of the world have seen
hunger decline, including South America and most regions in Asia.
But in the Caribbean, Western Asia, and Africa, hunger is rising.
To change the trend, nations must pair humanitarian aid with
strengthening local food supply chains, said Kevin Mugenya, the food
systems director for Mercy Corps, an international aid group, in an
interview with Reuters.
"Countries need to have localized solutions," he said.
The report was compiled by the U.N.'s International Fund for
Agricultural Development, Children's Fund, World Health
Organization, World Food Programme, and FAO.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
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