Global Hunger: Progress and Challenges
Hunger alleviation
After a prolonged decline, world hunger appears to be on the rise again. Conflict, drought and disasters linked to climate change are among the key factors causing this reversal in progress.
- The proportion of undernourished people worldwide increased from 10.6 per cent in 2015 to 11.0 per cent in 2016. This translates to 815 million people worldwide in 2016, up from 777 million in 2015.
- In 2017, 151 million children under age 5 suffered from stunting (low height for their age), 51 million suffered from wasting (low weight for height), and 38 million were overweight.
- Aid to agriculture in developing countries totalled $12.5 billion in 2016, falling to 6 per cent of all donors’ sector-allocable aid from nearly 20 per cent in the mid-1980s.
- Progress has been made in reducing market-distorting agricultural subsidies, which were more than halved in five years—from $491 million in 2010 to less than $200 million in 2015
- In 2016, 26 countries experienced high or moderately high levels of general food prices, which may have negatively affected food security.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World
A 2018 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, SOFI, focuses on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. Several key messages from the report include the following:
New evidence in SOFI 2018 confirms a rise in world hunger: the number of people who suffer from hunger has been growing over the past three years, returning to levels from almost a decade ago. Multiple forms of malnutrition are evident in many countries: adult obesity is growing even as forms of undernutrition persist.
The report says that climate variability and extremes are key drivers behind this rise, together with conflict and economic downturns, and are threatening to erode and reverse gains made in ending hunger and malnutrition. SOFI 2018 reveals new challenges on the road to Zero Hunger, while setting out urgent actions needed to achieve the goal by 2030.
The report can be found HERE
New evidence in SOFI 2018 confirms a rise in world hunger: the number of people who suffer from hunger has been growing over the past three years, returning to levels from almost a decade ago. Multiple forms of malnutrition are evident in many countries: adult obesity is growing even as forms of undernutrition persist.
The report says that climate variability and extremes are key drivers behind this rise, together with conflict and economic downturns, and are threatening to erode and reverse gains made in ending hunger and malnutrition. SOFI 2018 reveals new challenges on the road to Zero Hunger, while setting out urgent actions needed to achieve the goal by 2030.
The report can be found HERE
Building a Big Tent for Agricultural Transformation in Ethiopia - report by the Center for Strategic & International Studies
"At the turn of the twentieth century, drought-affected areas and resulting food crises were essentially limited to the northern provinces of Tigray and Wello. Over subsequent decades, food crises have expanded to the eastern, southern pastoral, and central areas; to the Rift Valley; and to the country’s western regions, where rainfall shortages are becoming the norm. Between 1975 and 1993, drought was recorded 17 times in Sidamo, 16 times in Bale and Gondar, 15 times in Shewa and Wello, 14 times in Gamo Gofa and Hararghe, 12 times in Arsi and Tigray, and 11 times in Gojjam, Illubabor and Wollega provinces. From 1994 to 2007, many locations reported drought nearly every year. Between 2008 and 2018, the total number of woredas (districts) deemed priorities reached 568, out of a total of some 800. A typical weather anomaly—drought—has become a regular source of major national food crises. As a result, overseas development assistance swelled to $3.1 billion in fiscal year 2015/2016.3
This reading of the Ethiopian context makes one thing clear. Economic growth, in and of itself, is insufficient. It must be accompanied by economic transformations that equip Ethiopia’s smallholder farmers with the ability to grow and diversify their livelihoods. For this to occur, the agriculture sector itself must transform.
Recent research has empirically reaffirmed the advantages of investing in farmers: growth in the agriculture sector is two to three times more effective at reducing poverty than growth generated in other sectors.4 Agricultural transformation is part and parcel of the larger economic process of structural transformation, which, as economist Peter Timmer notes, “has been the main pathway out of poverty for all societies.”
The CSIS report can be found HERE.
This reading of the Ethiopian context makes one thing clear. Economic growth, in and of itself, is insufficient. It must be accompanied by economic transformations that equip Ethiopia’s smallholder farmers with the ability to grow and diversify their livelihoods. For this to occur, the agriculture sector itself must transform.
Recent research has empirically reaffirmed the advantages of investing in farmers: growth in the agriculture sector is two to three times more effective at reducing poverty than growth generated in other sectors.4 Agricultural transformation is part and parcel of the larger economic process of structural transformation, which, as economist Peter Timmer notes, “has been the main pathway out of poverty for all societies.”
The CSIS report can be found HERE.