UN: More than 800 million people affected by hunger due to the pandemic

estimates United Nations showed that at least 828 million people in the world were suffering from hunger due to the pandemic and the climate crisis at the end of last year, with the biggest concern that if the situation continues, it will not be possible to achieve the goal of zero hunger in 2030.

According to the annual report, which looks at global nutrition and food safety, the consequences of the war in Ukraine have not yet been observed; however, the pandemic has exposed “the fragility of agri-food systems and inequalities”.

Since the beginning of the health crisis at the end of 2019, the number of people without access to food has increased by 150 million, up from 46 million last year.

Zero hunger with no way to satisfy

In 2021, the number of people suffering from severe food insecurity; that is, those who could not eat for days reached 2,300 million, equivalent to 30% of the world’s population.

With this scenario The Zero Hunger goal is unlikely to be reachedsince by 2030 the figure could rise to 670 million people, equivalent to 8% of the world’s population, and the same number of people who suffered from hunger in 2015.

“The war is expected to slow economic growth this year. Inflation mainly affects the most vulnerable population, who cannot cope with rising prices,” IFAD director of communications and global advocacy Helen Papper told Efe, acknowledging that “it is very difficult to achieve the goal by 2030.”

Which regions are affected by food insecurity?

According to the UN report, Asia was the hardest hit with 20.2% of the population, Africa reached 9.1%, and in Latin America and the Caribbean, 8.6% of the population was affected.

In the case of Latin America and the Caribbean, a decline was registered, given that 40.6% of its population was severely affected by hunger in 2021, in the Caribbean and South America, where “malnutrition has doubled since 2015”.

Data to be taken into account

27.6% of men in the world suffer from food insecurity, while this problem affects 31.9%.

Another worrying fact is the “catastrophic” increase in the number of people who cannot afford healthy food, to 3.1 billion people worldwide in 2020, and this figure is estimated to increase due to the rise in prices caused by the war on Ukraine.