Undernourishment

Prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) worldwide in per cent. Undernourishment is defined by the FAO as “the condition of an individual whose habitual food consumption is insufficient to provide, on average, the amount of dietary energy required to maintain a normal, active, healthy life.” FAO’s calculation of the minimum dietary energy requirement (global average 2019: 1827 kcal) is based on demographic data for each country, taking into account age and sex, weight, height or physical activity level of the population.

Empty plates and hungry bellies – a constant crisis

Between 2009 and 2019, the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) in the world only declined slightly, and has increased again since 2014. In 2019, almost 690 million people, equating to one in every ten people, suffered from chronic hunger, according to FAO’s latest SOFI report. This figure is much lower than the estimate of 821.6 million chronically hungry people in 2018 in the previous edition of the report due to a revision of data for China going back to the year 2000. New population, food supply and household survey data was considered, bringing the PoU for China down to under 2.5%, as compared to almost 10% without this revision. Given that China is home to one-fifth of the world population this has resulted in a large drop in the total number. However, the general upwards trend of the curve remains and the Covid-19 pandemic may add an additional 132 million people to the global number of undernourished in 2020 alone.
The global figures disguise alarming regional figures and trends: In 2019, the share of undernourished people was 22% in Sub-Saharan Africa, up from 20.3% in 2014, an increase of 46 million people. In Eastern Africa, 27.2% of the population were undernourished in 2019 – 18.8 million people more than in 2014. In absolute numbers, most of the world’s undernourished people live in Asia (381.1 million), followed by Africa (250.3 million) and Latin America and the Caribbean (47.7 million). The figures on chronic undernourishment only include those who regularly do not have access to the minimum dietary energy required. Another 1.25 billion people, living in both high and low-income countries, experience moderate food insecurity and are forced to compromise on the quality and/or quantity of the food they eat due to lack of money or other resources. In addition, at the other end of the scale, 135 million people worldwide faced acute hunger in 2019.