In a sharp spike, new report finds quarter of a billion people hungry

In 2022, nearly 258 million people in 58 countries and territories faced high levels of acute food insecurity, a jump of about 33% from the previous year — demonstrating the world is wildly off track in achieving its goal of zero hunger by the end of this decade. The 2023 Global Report on Food Crises found a seven-year high in hunger numbers in 2022, up from 193 million people in 53 countries and territories in 2021. It’s the fourth consecutive year with rising numbers of people experiencing Phase 3 or above of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, designating their food security situation as serious. “This is what the report is telling us, that actually the way we’ve been doing business so far is not working, despite everybody’s good intentions.” --— Rebecca Richards, head of the Global Network Against Food Crises The report blames “interconnected, mutually reinforcing drivers” for the dramatic rise in hunger numbers — namely economic shocks, weather extremes, and conflict and insecurity. Those are further exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and “lingering” effects of COVID-19. “The funding is so stretched against the need that we have to take tough decisions on who gets food and who doesn’t get food with the limited funding we have,” said Rebecca Richards, head of the Global Network Against Food Crises, which produces the report. “As you see the trends from the report, the amount of money per person is getting less and less.” The Global Network Against Food Crises is a consortium of 16 organizations, including the World Food Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and USAID. It uses the IPC system to rank populations’ food security on a scale of “minimal,” “stressed,” “crisis,” “emergency,” and “catastrophe/famine.” Of the 58 countries measured, 27 countries experienced economic shocks, 19 experienced conflict and insecurity, and 12 suffered from weather extremes, demonstrating the overlapping factors which are making it more difficult to promote food security. Responses are further complicated by the fact that the number of forcibly displaced people in countries facing food crisis is the highest in the history of the report, at 72.8 million. The country with the highest numbers of people in IPC Phase 3 or higher in 2022 was the Democratic Republic of Congo. Of those suffering from the most severe IPC classification, “catastrophe,” which is also known as famine, more than half were in Somalia. But people in Yemen, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and — for the first time — Haiti also suffered from famine. The report urged the international community to act early to stave off food crises rather than wait until famine conditions have been reached, since “by this stage, lives and futures have already been lost, livelihoods have collapsed, and social networks disrupted with deleterious impacts on the lives of an unborn generation.” An increase in food prices was seen in all countries measured by the report, and food price inflation was over 10% in 38 of the 58 countries. Richards urged the international community to actually address the drivers of food insecurity — such as the war in Ukraine — instead of continually being trapped in a cycle of raising money to feed hungry people only once the situation becomes dire. “[The data in the report] provides you with a much stronger starting point for negotiations. It provides you with a stronger foundation to develop and finance, resource, and get the buy-in for those solutions,” Richards said. “So I think the partnership piece for the longer term is critical, and that’s why the report is different to others.” There are troubling trends for child malnutrition, according to the report, with 35 million children under 5 years old suffering from wasting, the most severe form of malnutrition — a 34% jump from 26 million found in the previous year’s report. In addition to the numbers for 2022, the report makes predictions for 2023 that show a continuation of the uphill climb against eradicating hunger: Available projections as of March for 38 of the 58 countries recorded showed up to 153.4 million people will be in IPC Phase 3 or above. But the report notes that those estimates don’t include a number of shocks that already occurred this year, such as Cyclone Freddy in East Africa, the earthquakes in Syria and Turkey, and the increasingly volatile conflict in Sudan. “This is what the report is telling us, that actually the way we’ve been doing business so far is not working, despite everybody’s good intentions,” Richards said. “We need to be tackling it differently and by that I mean there needs to be much stronger willingness from member states to look at the politics behind food security, to look at the access to resources, to look at the access to food.”