SDG 2: Zero Hunger

If your research contributes to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger add the keyword "SDG 2", "SDG2: Zero Hunger" and/or "Sustainable Development Goals" to your article/book/chapter/conference paper/ dataset and we will automatically add it to this rapidly growing collection of research outputs. See the instructions here. 

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The total number of persons suffering from severe food insecurity has been on the rise since 2015, and there are still millions of malnourished children. The economic slowdown and the disruption of food value chains caused by the pandemic are exacerbating hunger and food insecurity. In addition, the upsurge in desert locusts remains alarming in East Africa and Yemen, where 35 million persons already experience acute food insecurity. Owing to the pandemic, some 370 million schoolchildren are missing the free school meals that they rely on. Measures to strengthen food production and distribution systems must be taken immediately to mitigate and minimize the impacts of the pandemic.

An estimated 26.4 per cent of the world population, about 2 billion persons, were affected by moderate or severe food insecurity in 2018, an increase from 23.2 per cent in 2014, owing mainly to increases in food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Slightly more than 700 million persons, or 9.2 per cent of the world population, experienced severe food insecurity in 2018, implying reductions in the quantity of food consumed to the extent that they possibly experienced hunger.

The proportion of children under 5 years of age suffering from chronic undernutrition, as well as stunting (being too short for one’s age), decreased, from 23.1 per cent in 2015 to 21.3 per cent in 2019. Globally, 144 million children under 5 years of age were still affected by stunting in 2019. Three quarters of them lived in Central and Southern Asia or sub-Saharan Africa.

Globally, 47 million children under 5 years of age, or 6.9 per cent, were affected by acute undernutrition or wasting (low weight for one’s height) in 2019 conditions generally caused by limited nutrient intake and infection. More than half of the wasted children lived in Central and Southern Asia. Childhood overweight affected 38 million children under 5 years of age worldwide, or 5.6 per cent, in 2019. Wasting and overweight may coexist at levels considered to be medium to high, the so-called double burden of malnutrition. In Northern Africa and South-Eastern Asia, the rate of wasting was 7.2 per cent and 8.2 per cent, respectively, while the rate of overweight was 11.3 per cent and 7.5 per cent, respectively, in 2019.

The share of government expenditure in the agricultural sector, measured by government expenditure in agriculture divided by the sector’s share of GDP, fell worldwide, from 0.42 to 0.31 to 0.28 per cent in 2001, 2015 and 2018, respectively. Moreover, aid to agriculture in developing countries fell, from nearly 25 per cent of all donors’ sector-allocable aid in the mid-1980s to only 5 per cent, in 2018.

In 2019, sharp increases in food prices were concentrated largely in sub-Saharan Africa, driven by production shocks and macroeconomic difficulties. The lingering impact of prolonged conflict and extreme weather conditions in some areas were additional factors.

Source: Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, Report of the Secretary-General, https://undocs.org/en/E/2020/57

Learn more at https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal2

Join us at ScienceOpen in collectively curating a list of research articles by tagging your work via keywords, either through the publication process with your publisher, or after the fact by adding keywords to your work on ScienceOpen. If your research contributes to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger add the keyword "SDG 2", SDG2: Zero Hunger and/or "Sustainable Development Goals" to your article/book/chapter/conference paper/ dataset and we will automatically add it to this rapidly growing collection of research outputs. See the instructions here: 

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