More than 250m people faced acute food insecurity in 2022, UN report says
More than a quarter of a billion people around the world faced severe hunger last year amid a worsening global food crisis that threatens to slide into famine for millions.
The war in Ukraine, which has raised food prices globally, was one key factor, and other conflicts have also wreaked terrible damage on people’s ability to find or afford food. The lingering impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic also played a role, as did the changing climate.
Last year was the fourth year in a row in which the number of people facing food crises increased substantially, according to data released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on Wednesday.
The data, contained in the 2023 edition of the annual Global Report on Food Crises, shows a world gripped by an increasingly widespread and urgent food crisis. In 2022, at least 258 million people in 58 countries faced “acute food insecurity”, defined as hunger so severe that it poses an immediate threat to people’s livelihoods and lives.
Acute food insecurity is less severe than famine, which is declared when people are dying of starvation. The number was up sharply from 193 million people in 53 countries in 2021, though the increase is partly explained by an increase in the populations analysed.
More than 35 million children under five had suffered from wasting in the 58 countries covered, of whom more than 9 million cases were found to be severe. Wasting in childhood from acute malnutrition can have lifelong consequences for physical and mental development.
Rein Paulsen, the director of the FAO’s office of emergencies and resilience, said: “The latest figures on the global acute food insecurity situation paint a very concerning picture. They tell us that now for four consecutive reports, four
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