Let us start with a sad fact: the number of undernourished people on our planet has been increasing in recent years. It had been hoped that in 2021 the world would put the Covid-19 pandemic behind it and that the supply of food would begin to improve. Instead, in 2021, the level of world hunger rose again. This increase reflects the exacerbated inequality between and within countries, due to differing patterns of economic recovery, and also the failure to recover lost income in places that were hardest hit by the pandemic crisis.
In 2021 hunger affected 278 million people in Africa, 56.5 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 425 million in Asia. On average, between 702 and 828 million people were suffering from hunger in 2021. The figure rose by 103 million between 2019 and 2020, and in the following year by a further 46 million. The stark increase in the first time frame, in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, has continued, although at a more moderate rate.
Estimates indicate that about 670 million people, eight per cent of the world’s population, will continue to go hungry in 2030 the same percentage as in 2015, when the 2030 Agenda was launched.
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