essay on global hunger

World Hunger: Causes and Solutions Essay (Critical Writing)

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Although World Hunger may seem to be completely solved for the majority of people in developed countries, it is not entirely true. Diverse issues concerning this global problem can be considered urgent or damaging for some nations or even continents. For example, despite the presence of several developing and industrial countries in Africa, most of the continent’s inhabitants lead an agricultural lifestyle and live under conditions of constant hunger. Therefore, an appropriate solution requires to be found in order to provide broad-based prosperity and admissible living conditions.

World hunger can be caused by diverse reasons, which lead to the establishment of different concepts about the issue. The most common reasons for famine are poverty, food shortages, war, armed conflicts, global warming, the economy, poor public policy and food nutrition, gender inequality, food waste, as well as forced migration. Hence, the global understanding of world hunger can be viewed in correlation with other ubiquitous issues, and the reason for various solutions is the distinctions between its diverse concepts and directions.

For example, poverty tends to be one of the most significant factors that contribute to global hunger. In terms of famine, inadmissible living conditions lead to the inability to purchase healthy food. Additionally, the majority of poor families often sell their household goods, devices, and clothes to provide their relatives and children with the minimum amount of food and water. Living under the line of poverty results in a decrease in health levels, higher death rates, and expanding world hunger, especially in poor domestic areas. The Democratic Republic of Congo can be presented as an example of these factors’ influence. The second enormous problem causing global hunger is the ubiquitous food shortage that is mostly applicable to African countries as well. Generally, in this case, famine emerges under the affection of global warming, inappropriate weather for cultivating activities, the overall poverty across certain regions, and the population’s low educational level. In addition, global hunger shows a tendency to fluctuation depending on the year’s seasons; for example, when in certain tribes, the food from the previous harvest is ceased.

War or armed conflicts are often the primary reason for broad-based hunger. For example, in such countries as Sudan, Syria, or Iraq, the confrontations among diverse belligerent groups led to poverty, the decay of natural and human resources, and a shortage of land suitable for cultivating activities. Under such conditions, the populations of specific countries suffer from famine and struggle to get access to nutritious food. Hence, it can be stated that several reasons and issues for world hunger can be grouped based on their distinctions and similarities, such as economic, martial, social, or environmental factors.

A number of scholars and scientists express their concerns about global hunger and often consider it the most significant social problem comparable with the climate crisis. For example, Peter Singer and Garrett Hardin depict the importance of famine and suggest diverse solutions for the cease of the problem in their publications and scientific research. Both researchers argue about helping the less lucky and wealthy ones or leaving them without support and donation. The issue is rather controversial. Hence, scientists express diverse opinions regarding the world hunger and poverty problem. Singer’s main idea is that if people can provide starving, dying, and struggling people with help or financial support, they should definitely do it (Boesch, 2021). However, Hardin argues his viewpoint and supports the idea of “no sharing,” which means no donation from the wealthy ones (Hardin, 1974). Those viewpoints cannot be defined as correct or incorrect, ethical or unethical, because both have their risks and benefits. Therefore, they require to be examined and estimated to find the right compromise for solving this existing catastrophe.

On the one hand, people living in wealthier and more economically developed countries cannot be forced to donate to save other people from dying. Additionally, it cannot be considered an ethically inappropriate decision as such citizens do not bear any responsibility for the lives of poorer nations. However, when individuals see some donation or volunteering proposals and do not perform any actions, they generally feel guilty despite their non-participation. Singer explains that if there is any chance of helping someone to survive, then this opportunity has to be taken, and the person needs to be saved. Due to the complexity of people’s lives, this cannot be taken as the only right decision. For example, many people in the United States live under the line of poverty and often cannot afford to buy even vital products. However, American citizens prefer to donate to children in Africa instead of helping those who live only several miles away. In addition, Singer’s idea is rather extreme as it requires every citizen living under appropriate or satisfying living conditions to donate their money instead of buying more goods and services for themselves.

In comparison to Singer’s opinion, Hardin takes just the opposite position on the issue. However, the no-sharing concept can be considered extreme as well. For example, celebrities having millions or even billions of dollars could take part in diverse volunteering activities to encourage others willing to help to do so. Business corporations could apply a particular part of their profit to the establishment of specialized funds for helping people in need.

Such a viewpoint cannot be considered totally correct as well due to the broad-based integration and international relations between different political leaders and countries. Hardin thinks that people should not share their incomes or wealth with the poorer representatives of the community and focus on the increase of their own well-being (Hardin, 1974). No evidence is needed to state that the refusal to donate and invest in poverty and world hunger will lead to an enormous difference in economic and socio-cultural levels among various countries and continents. This situation will not be beneficial for both sides as such causes as lowering international trade volumes, growing number of immigrants and refugees, as well as overall economic stagnation will be seen. Therefore, the concept of no sharing might be inappropriate based on its radicalism and damaging outcomes.

Blind donations cannot help other nations succeed or fight the problem. More than money, such countries need support in developing and implementing advanced technology and learning to deal with climate change and diverse natural disasters. Additionally, modifications in the political, economic, and social spheres would be beneficial; hence, developed countries and their citizen would play a greater role by teaching volunteers than by donating. Hence, the right solution for the issue can be found by overlapping both Hardin’s and Singer’s suggestions. The donations should continue; however, those actions should be voluntary; therefore, only those who want to help should do it. Such funds are relevant in combination with the increase of knowledge, development of production, and economy. Donations and sponsorships without an actual rise in productivity are irrelevant and unprofitable.

Boesch, B. (2021). Ethics and absolute poverty: Peter Singer and effective altruism. 1000-Word Philosophy. Web.

Hardin, G. (1974). Lifeboat ethics: The case against helping the poor . The Garret Hardin Society. Web.

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World Hunger: A Moral Response

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This article explores whether or not people have a moral obligation to feed poor nations from several different aspects.">

Between now and tomorrow morning, 40,000 children will starve to death. The day after tomorrow, 40,000 more children will die, and so on throughout 1992. In a "world of plenty," the number of human beings dying or suffering from hunger, malnutrition, and hunger-related diseases is staggering. According to the World Bank, over 1 billion people—at least one quarter of the world's population—live in poverty. Over half of these people live in South Asia; most of the remainder in sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia.

The contrast between these peoples and the populations of rich nations is a stark one. In the poor nations of South Asia, the mortality rate among children under the age of 5 is more than 170 deaths per thousand, while in Sweden it is fewer than 10. In sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy is 50 years, while in Japan it is 80.

These contrasts raise the question of whether people living in rich nations have a moral obligation to aid those in poor nations. Currently, less than 1/2 of 1% of the total world gross national product is devoted to aiding poverty-stricken nations. In 1988, the amount of aid from the U S. amounted to only 0.21% of its GNP. In 1990, the World Bank urged the international community to increase aid to poor countries to 0.7% of their GNP. If this goal is reached, poverty could be reduced by as much as 40% by the end of this decade. What is the extent of our duty to poor nations?

We Have No Obligation to Aid Poor Nations Some ethicists argue that rich nations have no obligation to aid poor nations. Our moral duty, they claim, is always to act in ways that will maximize human happiness and minimize human suffering. In the long run, aiding poor nations will produce far more suffering than it will alleviate. Nations with the highest incidence of poverty also have the highest birthrates. One report estimates that more than 90% of the world's total population growth between now and the year 2025 will occur in developing countries. Providing aid to people in such countries will only allow more of them to survive and reproduce, placing ever greater demands on the world's limited food supply. And as the populations of these countries swell, more people will be forced onto marginal and environmentally fragile lands, leading to widespread land degradation, further reducing the land available for food production. The increase in demands on the limited food supply combined with a decrease in the production of food will threaten the survival of future generations of all peoples, rich and poor.

Others claim that, even in the short-run, little benefit is derived from aiding poor nations. Aid sent to developing countries rarely reaches the people it was intended to benefit. Instead, it is used by oppressive governments to subsidize their military or spent on projects that benefit local elites, or ends up on the black market. Between 1978 and 1984, more than 80% of 596 million of food aid sent to Somalia went to the military and other public institutions. In El Salvador, 80% of U.S. aid in dry milk ended up on the black market. Furthermore, giving aid to poor countries undermines any incentive on the part of these countries to become self-sufficient through programs that would benefit the poor, such as those that would increase food production or control population growth. Food aid, for example, depresses local food prices, discouraging local food production and agricultural development. Poor dairy farmers in El Salvador have found themselves competing against free milk from the U.S. As a result of aid, many countries, such as Haiti, Sudan, and Zaire, have become aid dependent.

Some ethicists maintain that the principle of justice also dictates against aiding poor nations. Justice requires that benefits and burdens be distributed fairly among peoples. Nations that have planned for the needs of their citizens by regulating food production to ensure an adequate food supply for the present, as well as a surplus for emergencies, and nations that have implemented programs to limit population growth, should enjoy the benefits of their foresight. Many poor nations have irresponsibly failed to adopt policies that would stimulate food production and development. Instead, resources are spent on lavish projects or military regimes. Consider the $200 million air-conditioned cathedral recently constructed in the impoverished country of Cote D'Ivoire. Or consider that, in 1986, developing countries spent six times what they received in aid on their armed forces. Such nations that have failed to act responsibly should bear the consequences. It is unjust to ask nations that have acted responsibly to now assume the burdens of those nations that have not.

Finally, it is argued, all persons have a basic right to freedom, which includes the right to use the resources they have legitimately acquired as they freely choose. To oblige people in wealthy nations to give aid to poor nations violates this right. Aiding poor nations may be praiseworthy, but not obligatory.

We Have an Obligation to Aid Poor Nations Many maintain that the citizens of rich nations have a moral obligation to aid poor nations. First, some have argued, all persons have a moral obligation to prevent harm when doing so would not cause comparable harm to themselves. It is clear that suffering and death from starvation are harms. It is also clear that minor financial sacrifices on the part of people of rich nations can prevent massive amounts of suffering and death from starvation. Thus, they conclude, people in rich nations have a moral obligation to aid poor nations. Every week more than a quarter of a million children die from malnutrition and illness. Many of these deaths are preventable. For example, the diarrhea disease and respiratory infections that claim the lives of 16,000 children every day could be prevented by 10 cent packets of oral rehydration salts or by antibiotics usually costing under a dollar. The aid needed to prevent the great majority of child illness and death due to malnutrition in the next decade is equal to the amount of money spent in the U.S. to advertise cigarettes. It is well within the capacity of peoples of rich nations as collectives or as individuals to prevent these avoidable deaths and to reduce this misery without sacrificing anything of comparable significance. Personalizing the argument, Peter Singer, a contemporary philosopher, writes:

Just how much we will think ourselves obliged to give up will depend on what we consider to be of comparable moral significance to the poverty we could prevent: color television, stylish clothes, expensive dinners, a sophisticated stereo system, overseas holidays, a (second ?) car, a larger house, private schools for our children . . . none of these is likely to be of comparable significance to the reduction of absolute poverty.

Giving aid to the poor in other nations may require some inconvenience or some sacrifice of luxury on the part of peoples of rich nations, but to ignore the plight of starving people is as morally reprehensible as failing to save a child drowning in a pool because of the inconvenience of getting one's clothes wet.

In fact, according to Singer, allowing a person to die from hunger when it is easily within one's means to prevent it is no different, morally speaking, from killing another human being. If I purchase a VCR or spend money I don't need, knowing that I could instead have given my money to some relief agency that could have prevented some deaths from starvation, I am morally responsible for those deaths. The objection that I didn't intend for anyone to die is irrelevant. If I speed though an intersection and, as a result, kill a pedestrian, I am morally responsible for that death whether I intended it or not.

In making a case for aid to poor nations, others appeal to the principle of justice. Justice demands that people be compensated for the harms and injustices suffered at the hands of others. Much of the poverty of developing nations, they argue, is the result of unjust and exploitative policies of governments and corporations in wealthy countries. The protectionist trade policies of rich nations, for example, have driven down the price of exports of poor nations. According to one report, the European Economic Community imposes a tariff four times as high against cloth imported from poor nations as from rich ones. Such trade barriers cost developing countries $50 to $100 billion a year in lost sales and depressed markets. Moreover, the massive debt burdens consuming the resources of poor nations is the result of the tight monetary policies adopted by developed nations which drove up interest rates on the loans that had been made to these countries. In 1989, Third World countries owed $1.2 trillion nearly half of their total CNP to banks and governments in industrial countries. According to one report, since 1988, $50 billion a year has been transferred from poor nations to rich nations to service these debts.

Those who claim that wealthy nations have a duty to aid poor nations counter the argument that aiding poor nations will produce more suffering than happiness in the long run. First, they argue, there is no evidence to support the charge that aiding poor nations will lead to rapid population growth in these nations, thus straining the world's resource supply. Research shows that as poverty decreases, fertility rates decline. When people are economically secure, they have less need to have large families to ensure that they will be supported in old age. As infant mortality declines, there is less need to have more children to insure against the likelihood that some will die. With more aid, then, there is a fair chance that population growth will be brought under control.

Moreover, contrary to popular belief, it is rich countries, not poor countries, that pose a threat to the world's resource supply. The average American uses up to thirty times more of the world's resources than does the average Asian or African. If our concern is to ensure that there is an adequate resource base for the world's population, policies aimed at decreasing consumption by rich nations should be adopted.

Those who support aid to poor nations also counter the argument that aid to poor nations rarely accomplishes what it was intended to accomplish. As a result of aid, they point out, many countries have significantly reduced poverty and moved from dependence to self reliance. Aid has allowed Indonesia, for example, to reduce poverty from 58% to 17% in less than a generation. There are, unfortunately, instances in which the poor haven't benefitted from aid, but such cases only move us to find more effective ways to combat poverty in these countries, be it canceling debts, lowering trade restrictions, or improving distribution mechanisms for direct aid. Furthermore, poor nations would benefit from aid if more aid was sent to them in the first place. In 1988, 41% of all aid was directed to high-income and middle-income countries, rather than to low income countries. According to the World Bank, only 8% of U.S. aid in 1986 could be identified as development assistance devoted to low income countries. Obviously poor countries can't benefit from aid if they're not receiving it.

Finally, it is argued, all human beings have dignity deserving of respect and are entitled to what is necessary to live in dignity, including a right to life and a right to the goods necessary to satisfy one's basic needs. This right to satisfy basic needs takes precedence over the rights of others to accumulate wealth and property. When people are without the resources needed to survive, those with surplus resources are obligated to come to their aid.

In the coming decade, the gap between rich nations and poor nations will grow and appeals for assistance will multiply. How peoples of rich nations respond to the plight of those in poor nations will depend, in part, on how they come to view their duty to poor nations--taking into account justice and fairness, the benefits and harms of aid, and moral rights, including the right to accumulate surplus and the right to resources to meet basic human needs.

"I begin with the assumption that suffering from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad.... My next point is this: if it is within our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it." --Peter Singer

Further reading

Brown, L. R. State of the World 1990: A Worldwatch Institute Report on progress toward a sustainable society. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1990.

Hardin, G. Lifeboat ethics: "The case against helping the poor." Psychology Today , September 1974, 8, pp. 38-43; 123-126.

Helmuth, J. W. "World hunger amidst plenty." USA Today , March 1989, 117, pp. 48-50. Singer, P. "Famine, affluence, and morality." Philosophy and Public Affairs , Spring 1972, 1, (3), pp. 229-243.

Worid Bank. World development report 1990: Poverty . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.

World Commission on Environment and Development. Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.

This article was originally published in Issues in Ethics - V. 5, N. 1 Spring 1992

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• Home > Hunger Notes Basics: Understanding Global Hunger

Hunger Notes Basics: Understanding Global Hunger

Hunger is not having enough nutritious food. To end global hunger, nutritious food needs to be affordable and available to everyone.

WHES has created several resources ideal for students, educators, and others looking for a general overview of global hunger .

As part of our Hunger Basics series, you you will find:

• A fact Sheet
• Explainer Video
• Infographics
• Quick Facts

 FACT SHEET: Understanding Global Hunger (updated August 2024)

This comprehensive guide provides an in-depth overview of global hunger, delving into its causes, effects, and key definitions. Spanning 13 pages, the report is enriched with stories and the latest global hunger statistics from 2023. Accompanying the guide is a companion video and downloadable graphics, making it a valuable resource for those looking to understand the complexities of global hunger.

Download and read the fact sheet , then test your knowledge with a hunger quiz !

VIDEO: Ask an Expert

In this short video, Steve Hansch, World Hunger Education Service board member, Hunger Notes author, and global health expert, explains global hunger, discusses a few causes, and tells you how to get involved in humanitarian work.

INFOGRAPHIC: Hunger at a Glance (2023)

QUICK FACTS 

Defining hunger.

Hunger and food insecurity are the two main terms to describe and track global hunger.

Global hunger is about quality, not just quantity. It’s the long-term lack of the right kind of nutritious food.

Food Insecurity means not always having access to the food people need for a healthy life.

→ Moderate : Skipping meals occasionally.

→ Severe: Going days without food.

→ Acute : Sudden, urgent food shortages.

Hunger is not having the right kind of enough. When food is too expensive or unavailable, low-income families make hard choices about what they eat, or if they can eat at all.

The Real Cost of Eating Healthy

Globally, a nutritious diet costs about $3.96 a day. In regions of Africa where hunger is disproportionately the highest, people who live in extreme poverty ($2.15 a day) can’t afford a healthy diet.

Why Are People Hungry?

Consumer Behavior:  People’s food choices and their interactions with food production influence hunger. A growing demand for cheap processed foods changes what kind of food is produced. There are not enough available fruits and vegetables for a healthy diet in almost every region of the world. Unsustainable farming also reduces production, harms the environment, and heightens hunger

Climate Change:  Unpredictable weather, rising temperatures, and natural disasters disrupt farming and decrease nutrients in crops. Environmental degradation, floods, and droughts cause a reduction in the food supply and decrease land available to farm.

Conflict:  Wars displace people, disrupt the food supply and create vicious cycles of hunger and poverty. Conflict is both a cause and effect of hunger.

Poor Governance:  In countries with poor governance, institutions are weak and mismanaged, reducing the resources available for essential services like healthcare, education, and food distribution.

Poverty:  Low–income families, who spend the majority of their income on food, are vulnerable to higher prices and when supplies are low. People who live in extreme poverty can’t afford a healthy diet.

Inequality:  Gender discrimination is a leading cause of hunger. Inequality disproportionately increases hunger in all marginalized communities who have unequal access to power and resources, such as income, work, education, and land.

Everyone has a stake in ending global hunger, which has far-reaching effects on the safety and prosperity of the world.

Global Hunger’s Ripple Effect

Individual Impacts

Global hunger harms health, shortens lifespan, and perpetuates poverty. Malnutrition impairs children’s brain development and growth, limiting their future potential.

National Impacts

Hunger produces a less educated workforce, weakening national economies and fostering instability. Humanitarian crises, like mass migrations, cost billions globally without addressing the core issues of hunger.

Global Impacts

Hunger and instability compromise global safety, with conflicts potentially crossing borders and prompting migration. Disruptions in food supply can elevate food and fuel prices, causing inflation that affects every nation.

INFOGRAPHIC: The World’s Most Affected Regions

The Road to Zero Hunger

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals provide a blueprint to end hunger by 2030.  

Some ways we can work to end hunger include:

• Integrate peace building in conflict zones.
•  Boost climate resilience.
• Support the vulnerable.
• Make nutritious foods affordable.
• Address poverty and inequality.
• Encourage healthy eating habits.

The Vision of a Hunger-Free World

It is possible to make nutritious food widely available and affordable to everyone.

Knowledge is the key to fighting hunger. By increasing our knowledge of what works and scaling up our actions to reduce hunger, we can end global hunger in our lifetime.  

LINKS FOR FURTHER READING 

Bread for the World , The 2020 Hunger Report: Better Nutrition, Better Tomorrow https://hungerreport.org/2020/

Feed the Future (website) https://www.feedthefuture.gov

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 . https://www.fao.org/publications/home/fao-flagship-publications/the-state-of-food-security-and-nutrition-in-the-world/en 

The United Nations , The 17 Goals: Sustainable Development Goals (2023, website) https://sdgs.un.org/goals

United States Agency for International Development , The Story Telling Hub (website) https://www.usaid.gov/stories

The World Bank , Poverty . (2023, website) https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty

World Food Programme : Drivers of Hunger (2023, website) https://www.wfpusa.org/drivers-of-hunger/

World Health Organization , World Health Statistics 2023: Monitoring Health for the SDGs https://www.who.int/data/gho/publications/world-health-statistics

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• Promote individual and collective commitments to sustainable hunger solutions.

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World Hunger and Poverty

Author and page information.

• by Anup Shah
• This page last updated Sunday, August 22, 2010
• This page: https://www.globalissues.org/issue/6/world-hunger-and-poverty .
• https://www.globalissues.org/print/issue/6

We often hear about people’s desire to solve world hunger, or to be able to feed the world and help alleviate the suffering associated with it.

However, meaningful long-term alleviation to hunger is rooted in the alleviation of poverty, as poverty leads to hunger. World hunger is a terrible symptom of world poverty. If efforts are only directed at providing food, or improving food production or distribution, then the structural root causes that create hunger, poverty and dependency would still remain. And so while continuous effort, resources and energies are deployed to relieve hunger through these technical measures, the political causes require political solutions as well.

4 articles on “World Hunger and Poverty” and 3 related issues:

Causes of Hunger are related to Poverty

There are many inter-related issues causing hunger, which are related to economics and other factors that cause poverty. They include land rights and ownership, diversion of land use to non-productive use, increasing emphasis on export-oriented agriculture, inefficient agricultural practices, war, famine, drought, over-fishing, poor crop yields, etc. This section introduces some of these issues.

Read “ Causes of Hunger are related to Poverty ” to learn more.

Solving World Hunger Means Solving World Poverty

Solving world hunger in the conventional sense (of providing/growing more food etc) will not tackle poverty that leads to hunger in the first place. Further, there is a risk of continuing the poverty and dependency without realizing it, because the act of attempting to provide more food etc can appear so altruistic in motive. To solve world hunger in the long run, poverty alleviation is required.

Read “ Solving World Hunger Means Solving World Poverty ” to learn more.

Population and Feeding the World

The food scarcity part of the argument in the population debate is an interesting one -- people are hungry not because the population is growing so fast that food is becoming scarce, but because people cannot afford it. Food may be scarce, but it is international trade, economic policies and the control of land that have lead to immense poverty and hunger and therefore less access to food, not food scarcity due to over population.

Read “ Population and Feeding the World ” to learn more.

Food and Agriculture Issues

This issue explores topics ranging from the global food crisis of 2008, to issues of food aid, world hunger, food dumping and wasteful agriculture such as growing tobacco, sugar, beef, and more.

Read “ Food and Agriculture Issues ” to learn more.

Food Dumping [Aid] Maintains Poverty

Food aid (when not for emergency relief) can actually be very destructive on the economy of the recipient nation and contribute to more hunger and poverty in the long term. Free, subsidized, or cheap food, below market prices undercuts local farmers, who cannot compete and are driven out of jobs and into poverty, further slanting the market share of the larger producers such as those from the US and Europe. Many poor nations are dependent on farming, and so such food aid amounts to food dumping. In the past few decades, more powerful nations have used this as a foreign policy tool for dominance rather than for real aid.

Read “ Food Dumping [Aid] Maintains Poverty ” to learn more.

Causes of Poverty

Poverty is the state for the majority of the world’s people and nations. Why is this? Is it enough to blame poor people for their own predicament? Have they been lazy, made poor decisions, and been solely responsible for their plight? What about their governments? Have they pursued policies that actually harm successful development? Such causes of poverty and inequality are no doubt real. But deeper and more global causes of poverty are often less discussed.

Read “ Causes of Poverty ” to learn more.

World hunger related links for more information

Links to web sites and articles that discuss world hunger, the relationship between populations and hunger, of poverty and hunger, agricultural issues, land rights and so on.

Read “ World hunger related links for more information ” to learn more.

Author and Page Information

• Created: Sunday, September 24, 2000
• Last updated: Sunday, August 22, 2010

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Goal 2: Zero Hunger

Goal 2 is about creating a world free of hunger by 2030.The global issue of hunger and food insecurity has shown an alarming increase since 2015, a trend exacerbated by a combination of factors including the pandemic, conflict, climate change, and deepening inequalities.

By 2022, approximately 735 million people – or 9.2% of the world’s population – found themselves in a state of chronic hunger – a staggering rise compared to 2019. This data underscores the severity of the situation, revealing a growing crisis.

In addition, an estimated 2.4 billion people faced moderate to severe food insecurity in 2022. This classification signifies their lack of access to sufficient nourishment. This number escalated by an alarming 391 million people compared to 2019.

The persistent surge in hunger and food insecurity, fueled by a complex interplay of factors, demands immediate attention and coordinated global efforts to alleviate this critical humanitarian challenge.

Extreme hunger and malnutrition remains a barrier to sustainable development and creates a trap from which people cannot easily escape. Hunger and malnutrition mean less productive individuals, who are more prone to disease and thus often unable to earn more and improve their livelihoods.

2 billion people in the world do not have reg- ular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food. In 2022, 148 million children had stunted growth and 45 million children under the age of 5 were affected by wasting.

How many people are hungry?

It is projected that more than 600 million people worldwide will be facing hunger in 2030, highlighting the immense challenge of achieving the zero hunger target.

People experiencing moderate food insecurity are typically unable to eat a healthy, balanced diet on a regular basis because of income or other resource constraints.

Why are there so many hungry people?

Shockingly, the world is back at hunger levels not seen since 2005, and food prices remain higher in more countries than in the period 2015–2019. Along with conflict, climate shocks, and rising cost of living, civil insecurity and declining food production have all contributed to food scarcity and high food prices.

Investment in the agriculture sector is critical for reducing hunger and poverty, improving food security, creating employment and building resilience to disasters and shocks.

Why should I care?

We all want our families to have enough food to eat what is safe and nutritious. A world with zero hunger can positively impact our economies, health, education, equality and social development.

It’s a key piece of building a better future for everyone. Additionally, with hunger limiting human development, we will not be able to achieve the other sustainable development goals such as education, health and gender equality.

How can we achieve Zero Hunger?

Food security requires a multi-dimensional approach – from social protection to safeguard safe and nutritious food especially for children to transforming food systems to achieve a more inclusive and sustainable world. There will need to be investments in rural and urban areas and in social protection so poor people have access to food and can improve their livelihoods.

What can we do to help?

You can make changes in your own life—at home, at work and in the community—by supporting local farmers or markets and making sustainable food choices, supporting good nutrition for all, and fighting food waste.

You can also use your power as a consumer and voter, demanding businesses and governments make the choices and changes that will make Zero Hunger a reality. Join the conversation, whether on social media platforms or in your local communities.

Facts and Figures

Goal 2 targets.

• Despite global efforts, in 2022, an estimated 45 million children under the age of 5 suffered from wasting, 148 million had stunted growth and 37 million were overweight. A fundamental shift in trajectory is needed to achieve the 2030 nutrition targets.
• To achieve zero hunger by 2030, urgent coordinated action and policy solutions are imperative to address entrenched inequalities, transform food systems, invest in sustainable agricultural practices, and reduce and mitigate the impact of conflict and the pandemic on global nutrition and food security.

Source: The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023

2.1 By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.

2.2 By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons.

2.3 By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment.

2.4 By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality.

2.5 By 2020, maintain the genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals and their related wild species, including through soundly managed and diversified seed and plant banks at the national, regional and international levels, and promote access to and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, as internationally agreed.

2.A Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries.

2.B Correct and prevent trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets, including through the parallel elimination of all forms of agricultural export subsidies and all export measures with equivalent effect, in accordance with the mandate of the Doha Development Round.

2.C Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and their derivatives and facilitate timely access to market information, including on food reserves, in order to help limit extreme food price volatility.

International Fund for Agricultural Development

Food and Agriculture Organization

World Food Programme

UNICEF – Nutrition

Zero Hunger Challenge

Think.Eat.Save.   Reduce your foodprint.

UNDP – Hunger

Fast Facts: No Hunger

Infographic: No Hunger

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World Hunger Facts

There is more than enough food produced in the world to feed everyone on the planet. yet 733 million people still go hungry., global hunger crisis in 2024.

Nearly one in 11 people around the world go to bed hungry each night, a crisis driven largely by conflict, climate change, and chronic inequality.

of Child Deaths are Linked to Hunger

Children Are Stunted Globally

More People Face Hunger Than in 2019

What is hunger?

Hunger is more complicated than empty bellies. It’s a multifaceted problem with many root causes and far-reaching impact. The first step to ending the global hunger crisis is to understand what it is and why it exists in a world of plenty.

Who does hunger affect?

An overwhelming majority of the world’s hungry people reside in the developing world, where extreme poverty and lack of access to nutritious food often leads to malnutrition. Women and children are particularly vulnerable.

7 Hunger Facts

Due to the severe drought in Somalia, Mumina has no food and no breastmilk left to feed her youngest baby.

Today, we made dried tamarind. You crush the tamarind until it’s a sticky paste. Then you add ash and cook it. We’ll eat it this evening. It’s not healthy at all, but at least we have something warm in our bellies.”

— Tsiharatie, a mother of seven children in Madagascar

Both me and my child were very weak. We do not have enough food - just a bit of rice, wheat, and flour, nothing else. Pregnant women here face the risk of death, and they face many other risks. They do a lot of work, and they have no choice because there is no one else to work.”

— Nadia, a mother of five in Afghanistan

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TEDx Talks: Are We Ready to End World Hunger?

This spring at TEDx OakLawn, I shared a brief history of the fight against global hunger – and how we’re closer to winning it than ever before.

Albert Einstein’s brain was dissected in 1955, but the world wouldn’t find out for another 20 years. When the news broke that a scientist had been secretly studying Einstein’s grey matter, universities and museums the world around fought to get a piece of the action—quite literally.

But amid the rancor and debate, renowned paleontologist Steven J. Gould quietly recorded this profound thought: “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

Watch The Full Video:

I think about this almost daily in my job at the World Food Program USA, because an even greater number have died of hunger. We see it in the news everyday—a rise in the absolute number of hungry people, an unprecedented four looming famines and of more hungry people displaced from their homes because of violence, conflict and persecution than any other time since the Second World War.

But it’s worth recalling a quote from the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald: “The test of true intelligence,” he wrote, “is the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts at the same time.” This is fundamentally true of global hunger today. Because over the last 20 years, over 200 million people have been lifted out of hunger. Famines still occur, but they kill far fewer people than ever before thanks to early warning systems and improved humanitarian responses. We have never had better tools to fight food insecurity.

At the risk of quoting another 20th century author, in the fight to end hunger, it is the best of times and it is the worst of times. So while the headlines can feel disheartening, as a person that follows global hunger trends for a living, I can tell you this with absolute certainty: We are winning the long game in the fight to end hunger.

The “Availability Heuristic”

Consider these two headlines:

• World Faces ‘Unprecedented’ Hunger as Famine Threatens Four Countries
• World Hunger is Increasing Thanks to Wars and Climate Change 

Stories like this come at us at warp speed today—a never-ending stream of push notifications onto cell phones that never leave our hands.

Between 2015 and 2016, the number of hungry people on the planet rose from 777 million to 815 million, driven by a proliferation of man-made crises. Increases in the outright number of hungry people in the world have happened in the past, as recently as a decade ago following the global food price spike crises of 2007/8. While there are important (and worrying) reasons to believe that this upward tick may be unique relative to previous “relapses,” in the words of Steven Pinker: “It would be astonishing if any measure of human behavior with all its vicissitudes ticked downward by a constant amount per unit of time, decade after decade and century after century.” He states further, “Seeing how journalistic habits and cognitive biases bring out the worst in each other, how do we soundly appraise the state of the world? The answer is to count.”

More specifically, we count further back in time. While it is true that the number of hungry people is on the rise again, the general trend in hunger over the past decade tells a far different story (Figure 2). It wasn’t long ago, in fact, that we were speaking of a billion hungry people on the planet. This recent spikes hides a brighter medium and long-term trend.

As we broaden our lens even further, there is more good news. Thanks to research by Alex de Waal, we’re able to see dramatic progress in with regard to famine prevention and response specifically (Figure 3). In his latest book Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine , de Waal shows that deaths from famine today are occurring at a fraction of what they have historically. “Our ultimate goal,” writes de Waal, “is to render mass starvation so morally toxic, that it is universally publicly vilified. We aim to make mass starvation unthinkable, such that political and military leaders in a position to inflict it or fail to prevent it, will unhesitatingly ensure that it does not occur, and the public will demand this of them.” There is some evidence to suggest that we’re doing just that.

In short, we can fight the availability heuristic when we choose to take a step back. It is when we look at progress in the long arc of human history that we see just how close we are to ending hunger for good. Hunger is not just a challenge of our generation—it is a battle that human beings have been fighting for millennia. And the story of our progress in ending hunger falls into clear stages, or quarters if you’ll allow a football reference. This is how that game has played out.

The First Quarter

In the first quarter, we fought a battle against population growth. Thomas Malthus, the English philosopher and cleric, prophesized in the 1798 in his book, Essay on the Principle of Population , that food production would not keep pace with population growth, leading to resource competition, violent conflict and mass starvation. It was through war and suffering that equilibrium would be returned to the global food system.

Thus began the battle between “Malthusians,” like Thomas, and so-called “Cornucopians”—those that thought humans would successfully engineer their way out the population dilemma. The Green Revolution in the 1960s and 70s successfully staved off Malthus’ doomsday scenario on a global scale, with industrial agriculture and improved seeds and practices winning the day.

When Malthus wrote his famous essay, the Earth was home to about a billion people. Today, we number over seven billion—and we produce over 2,500 calories for every man, woman and child on the planet. And while we will need to increase production by 50 to 70 percent to meet a population approaching 10 billion by 2050, this is well within our reach.

Thomas Malthus’s doomsday population bomb theory—carried forward by modern theorists like Paul Ehrlich—has been called a “zombie concept” by experts like Alex de Waal, because it is one that “scholars of agricultural economics have continually refuted, but it still keeps coming back to life to torment the living.” Generations after Malthus, the idea that population growth will outstrip food production has been thoroughly debunked.

The Second Quarter

In the second quarter, the central challenge in feeding the world was a natural extension of the first. If we accept that we can feed a growing human population, the next logical question is whether we can do it sustainably. Years of industrial agriculture and monoculture production wreaked havoc on our environment. After all, the same technology that fueled our bombs in the Second World War had been put to work in our fields. It can take 1,000 years to develop an inch of topsoil through natural processes, and we did away with a lot of it in just decades.

These are fragile systems, and we know more about the surface of the moon than the three feet of soil beneath us. David Attenborough once said, “If you believe you can have infinite growth on a finite planet, then you are either a madman or an economist.” I might add 20th Century farmers to this list.

But it was in this quarter that we started to appreciate ecological tipping points and began to talk about things like “planetary boundaries.” We learned that our agricultural practices were contributing to 25 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions, making climate change worse. As a general rule-of-thumb, climate scientists expect a 10 percent drop in crop yields for every one degree Celsius rise in mean global temperatures. We’re on pace for three degree increase by the close of the century. As many as 200 million people will be pushed into poverty and hunger by climate change if left unchecked.

Carryover Cornucopians from the first quarter clashed with ecologists like William Vogt in the second. Environmentalists sounded the alarm bells, arguing for the complete transformation of our food systems toward more sustainable models. Charles C. Mann refers to these two schools of thought as “wizards” and “prophets”— Wizards engineering their way out of this new ecological problem following the Cornucopian playbook and prophets faithfully stewarding the planet’s limited resources.

As a result, and in a hand-in-hand walk between Wizards and Prophets (sometimes begrudgingly so), we’ve already started to roll out common sense strategies like cover cropping and zero till agriculture. We developed new plant varieties using genetic engineering—not for commercial pesticide resistance like you so often read in the news, but to deal with things saltwater intrusion from sea level rise and drought from changing rainfall patterns. We’ve meticulously cataloged seeds and we’ve seen dramatic growth and interest in local food production. Hypotheses like “can organic agriculture feed the world” have been thoroughly tested, and the results are promising.

The Third Quarter

In the third quarter, we acknowledged the link between agriculture and nutrition. As strange as it may sound, we long considered agriculture and nutrition as two distinct concepts. Thanks to research on child and maternal health, we know that children who do not receive proper nutrition in their first thousand days of life will experience a lifetime of negative affects —physical stunting, reduced educational achievement and economic performance. These impacts costs economies trillions of dollars each year.

Meanwhile, in the industrialized world—and increasingly in developing countries—societies face the dual burden of hunger alongside obesity. At least as many people are obese on this planet as are hungry, well over a billion people. Josette Sheeran, former Executive Director of the World Food Programme, referred to our improved understanding of nutrition as the latest “burden of knowledge” facing hunger fighters.

We’ve translated this burden into specialized food aid products like “Plumpy’Nut” that can bring a child back from the brink of starvation. We’ve bio-fortified staple crops with Vitamin A and Zinc and other vitamins and minerals—so effectively that the minds behind this were awarded the World Food Prize in 2016. We’ve renewed efforts to get mothers breastfeeding around the world. This is how we’re closing out the third quarter. We’ve moved from trying to feed the world to trying to nourish the world. The next big idea that changes the course of humanity—the next Einstein-sized idea—may come from a truly unsuspecting place, but it will not come from the mind of a child who is stunted.

Across these quarters, it is not by the immutable laws of physics that hunger has declined—quite the opposite. It has been through the unlikely march of human progress in the face of overwhelming odds. Hunger hasn’t declined naturally, someone had to act. It was our early ancestors domesticating wheat in the Fertile Crescent 10,000 years ago; it was Norman Borlaug developing dwarf wheat in a laboratory in Mexico that would spark the Green Revolution; it was Senator George McGovern shepherding the idea of a World Food Programme into reality.

In the long struggle between humans and their natural environment, humans have been putting their thumb on the scale in ways big and small, tipping the balance in our favor—“Wizards” and “Prophets,” “Malthusians” and “Cornucopians” alike.

So let me say this again: We are winning the long game in the fight to end hunger. We asked ourselves, “Can we end hunger in the face of population growth?” We answered a resounding yes. We asked ourselves, “Can we end hunger sustainably in the face of population growth?” We wrote a playbook and we’re rolling it out. We asked ourselves, “Can we end hunger sustainably and nutritiously in the face of population growth?” That’s the mission that we’re currently on.

Human beings have built a doomsday bunker for plant genetic material in the frozen arctic of Norway. We are leveraging the big-data revolution to guide our tractors with satellite precision. WFP has adopted block-chain technology —the foundation of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies—to deliver humanitarian assistance and improve the efficiency of their supply chains. Meanwhile, in blue skies research, scientists are developing plant varieties that photosynthesize more efficiently and non-leguminous crops that fix nitrogen in the soil. We are questioning the way we do things. We are even questioning whether food needs soil—there has been a dramatic increase in hydroponics and vertical gardening. We have thrown everything we have at the problem of hunger—and it’s finally sticking, at scale.

This is good news story, to be sure, but this narrative is not meant to lull us into apathy. Bending the hunger curve toward zero has long relied on the extreme urgency of now. Trends only emerge as time piles up, and positive trends like the one we’ve experienced in global hunger only happen when we take concerted and sustained action. We cannot afford to take our eye off the ball, because we’re entering into the fourth quarter.

The Fourth Quarter

Many a game has been lost in the fourth quarter. In this quarter, the long trajectory of progress in the fight to end hunger meets head-on with a rise in global conflict. We’ve seen an increase in state fragility in the world. Over 60 percent of the world’s hungry live in conflict-affected countries. Almost 122 million, or 75 percent, of stunted children under age five live in these same places. Man-made conflict drives 80 percent of humanitarian spending while natural disaster accounts for just one in every five dollars—a complete reversal from 20 years earlier.

But here is what is important. This collision between hunger and conflict forces us to acknowledge the root political causes of hunger—something we have long ignored or at least under-appreciated. Hunger has always been a technical problem—“How do we grow more, better?” But we’ve done away with those technical barriers in the first three quarters. The only remaining hurdle to ending hunger for all time is abundantly political.

Once we accept that food security is fundamental to peace and security, we are forced to do something about it. It’s not just a matter of doing more than the next donor on moral or economic grounds or making investments in agricultural to tick a box. In the fourth quarter, food security will be seen as a pillar of global stability. And it needs to be, because that’s how we finally get the job done.

George McGovern, a former U.S. Senator and prominent anti-hunger advocate, wrote in his 2000 book, The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in our Time , “I give you my word that anyone who looks honestly at world hunger and measures the cost of ending it for all time will conclude that this is a bargain well worth seizing.”

We are the Zero Hunger Generation—the first generation in human history capable of seizing that bargain. Pause for a moment and think about what that means in practice. Human beings have been on this Earth for around 150,000 years. For the first 149,950, the baseline condition for humanity has been poverty, hunger and desperation. Yet here you are, reading this in 2018 (or beyond) with all of the tools to finally watch hunger stop.

In the long arc of human history, the world has never been more full of promise.

Watch The Full Video

*Chase Sova is the senior director of public policy at WFP USA. 

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Hunger and malnutrition in the 21st century

Food for thought, click here to read other articles in this collection.

• Related content
• Peer review
• Patrick Webb , professor 1 ,
• Gunhild Anker Stordalen , policy advocate 2 ,
• Sudhvir Singh , policy researcher 2 ,
• Ramani Wijesinha-Bettoni , United Nations 3 ,
• Prakash Shetty , professor 4 ,
• Anna Lartey , director of nutrition 3
• 1 Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• 2 EAT Forum, Oslo, Norway
• 3 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Ringgold Standard Institution, Rome, Italy
• 4 MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, Ringgold Standard Institution, Chennai, India
• Correspondence to: P Webb patrick.webb{at}tufts.edu

Despite record food output globally, hunger is still with us. Patrick Webb and colleagues argue that key policy actions are urgently needed to tackle this scourge and must focus on improving diet quality for all

Today’s world is characterised by the coexistence of agricultural bounty and widespread hunger and malnutrition. 1 Recent years have seen a reversal of a decades old trend of falling hunger, alongside the re-emergence of famine. 1 National and global evidence shows that ensuring an adequate food supply is still an important contribution to eradicating hunger. However, generating more food in the form of staple grains or tubers is not enough. Good nutrition and an end to hunger both require everyone to have an appropriate diet. How can that be achieved?

Characterising the problem

A recent report for the World Committee on Food Security argued that “malnutrition in all its forms—not only hunger, but also micronutrient deficiencies, as well as overweight and obesity—is … a critical challenge not only in the developing but also in the developed countries. Resolving malnutrition requires a better understanding of the determinants and processes that influence diets.” 1 Malnutrition ranges from extreme hunger and undernutrition to obesity ( box 1 ). 2 3 Furthermore, malnutrition is found in all countries, irrespective of their economic development, where people lack high quality diets. 4 5 6 Thus, solutions to hunger and to all forms of malnutrition need to focus on ensuring an adequate supply of food, but equally, on the quality of diets.

Terms and definitions 1 2 3

Hunger is characterised in many ways. It encompasses individual sensations and household behavioural responses, food scarcity (actual or feared) and national food balance sheets that focus on supply of energy (kilocalories) in any country in relation to a minimum threshold of need. The food balance sheet approach is the only standard of measurement used globally. It is based on data collated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. This organisation has replaced its previous use of the word “hunger” in describing this metric with the phrase “chronic undernourishment”. This today is defined as “a person’s inability to acquire enough food to meet daily minimum dietary energy requirements during 1 year” 1

Malnutrition— An all inclusive term that represents all manifestations of poor nutrition. It can mean any or all forms of undernutrition, overweight, and obesity

Undernutrition —Refers to any form of nutritional deficiency, particularly those manifest in maternal underweight, child stunting, child wasting, or micronutrient deficiencies. It does not include reference to overweight and obesity

Maternal underweight— A body mass index (BMI) of <18.5 among women of reproductive age. This typically reflects chronic energy deficiency coupled with a lack of other key macronutrients or micronutrients, ill health, or energy expenditure higher than consumption. A prevalence >20% indicates a serious public health problem

Child stunting —Height for age ≤ −2 standard deviations of the median for children aged 6-59 months, according to World Health Organization child growth standards

Child wasting— Weight for height ≤ −2 standard deviations of the median for children aged 6-59 months, according to WHO child growth standards

Micronutrient deficiencies— A lack of various key vitamins and minerals leads to a range of symptoms that are of global concern. These include anaemia due to iron deficiency and risk of child mortality associated with clinical vitamin A deficiency. Such deficiencies are measured in several ways, including biomarkers (assessed using blood, serum, urine, etc), clinical manifestations, or proxy measures of diet quality

Overweight and obesity —For non-pregnant adults, a BMI ≥25 represents being overweight. The threshold for obesity is a BMI ≥30. Child obesity is of increasing concern and was included in the latest global nutrition goals for 2030 (“no increase in childhood obesity”) 4

Today, risk factors for ill health associated with poor quality diets are the main causes of the global burden of disease. 5 6 Low quality diets lack key vitamins, minerals (micronutrients), and fibre or contain too many calories, saturated fats, salt, and sugar. 7 In 2010, dietary risk factors combined with physical inactivity accounted for 10% of the global burden of disease (measured as disability adjusted life years, which reflect the number of years lost due to ill health, disability, or early death). 8 By 2015, six of the top 11 global risk factors were related to diet, including undernutrition, high body mass index (BMI), and high cholesterol. 9 10 Where governments have invested the economic gains derived from rising productivity in safety nets and services accessible to the poor, this has resulted in national growth. 11 12 13 However, where poverty persists, including in rich nations, hunger also persists.

Several faces of hunger

Hunger is a broad unscientific term that relates to nutrition and health outcomes in various ways. The proportion of people defined as hungry over the long term (usually termed “chronically undernourished”) fell from 18.6% globally in 1990-2002 to under 11% in 2014-16 ( table 1 ). That was a decline of 211 million people while the world’s population increased by 2 billion. 2 Big gains were made in large countries like China and in Brazil, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh ( box 2 ). South America was particularly successful, reducing undernourishment by over 50% in 25 years. 1 Such gains were made possible largely by rapid reduction of poverty, rising levels of literacy, and health improvements that reduced preventable child mortality. 17

Numbers (millions) and prevalence (%) of people with chronic undernourishment, stunting, and wasting* by year and geographical region 2 14

• View inline

Successful resolution of undernutrition: Brazil, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh

Hunger (chronic undernourishment) has remained static at around 800 million people for several decades. This is largely because of rising populations in fragile states and the escalation of armed conflict in numerous parts of the world. 1 2 Nevertheless, child undernutrition has been falling. In 2000, roughly 200 million children under 5 years of age were stunted, but this has fallen to less than 151 million today. Rapid improvements in nutrition have been concentrated in several large nations, which have shown the way with policy success stories

• Brazil saw its prevalence of child stunting decline from 37% in 1974–1975 to 7% in 2006-7. 17 It achieved these gains through a sustained commitment to expand access to maternal and child health services (reaching into previously underserved geographical regions). This was coupled with large scale investment in social reform and safety net programmes that supported a narrowing of the income gap (through equitable poverty reduction), rising numbers of girls in school, declining fertility, and greater stability in income flows and food consumption among the poor. Stable food consumption was achieved through food supplementation targeted at mothers and children, and with cash transfers targeted at the poorest groups. All of this was helped by improved stability of governance. Few of these actions focused explicitly on nutrition, but many were driven by a policy agenda called “zero hunger.” Even with recent economic challenges and changes of government, the gains made over past decades persist

• Ethiopia has faced famines many times between the 1980s and the early 2000s. It has also reduced child stunting from 58% in 2000 to <40% by 2014. 18 Although this figure is still unacceptably high, it represents a fall of about 1.2% a year. 19 Ethiopia also increased enrolment and retention of girls in schools during this period, increased agricultural productivity, and implemented a huge employment based safety net (one of the largest social protection programmes in Africa). However, two other important drivers improved nutrition in this period. Firstly, a move by government to treat nutrition as a multisector challenge (met by numerous line ministry responsibilities) and, secondly, improved sanitation, focused on eradicating open defecation, which was a major impediment to health and the retention of nutrients in the diet 18 19

• Bangladesh is a modern nutrition superstar. It emerged from famine in the 1970s. Successive governments have worked alongside an unusually vibrant non-governmental sector to deal with underlying problems and visible symptoms of malnutrition. While service delivery remains generally weak, widespread targeted interventions were combined with a variety of nutritional measures that deal with underlying problems. 20 Such actions included economic growth policies aimed at the poor, girls’ education, improved sanitation, and a significant turnaround in the agricultural sector, which moved Bangladesh from being a net importer of food to a significant exporter. 18 21 As a result, child stunting fell from almost 57% in 1997 to around 36% in 2014 18 19

However, despite such progress the world still has unacceptably high numbers of undernourished people. Of the roughly 800 million undernourished, 780 million are in low income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. 1 The continents of Africa and Asia have the greatest number of people living in extreme poverty, and it is here that extreme hunger and poverty together present the greatest risk of famine.

Famine is the most acute face of hunger. Over 70 million people died in famines during the 20th century. 22 23 24 Most deaths occurred in human induced crises, in which political mismanagement, armed conflict, and discrimination of marginalised political or ethnic groups compounded the effects of environmental shocks, such as droughts or locust invasions. 25 Deaths from famine fell from the mid-1980s onwards. However, as of 2017 four countries were again struggling to cope: Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan, and Nigeria. 26 In each case, instability induced by conflict, terrorism, drought and decades of failed governance have left over 20 million people facing famine, including 1.4 million children “at imminent risk of death.” 27

A major cause of mortality in famines is children becoming severely wasted. Around 52 million children were wasted in 2016, of whom around 70% (36 million) resided in Asia ( table 1 ). 14 Roughly 12.6% of deaths among children under 5 are attributed to wasting worldwide. 28 Although wasting has declined, progress has been slow and some countries have seen a rise, including Pakistan and India. 29 Many of the drivers of wasting are often the same as for stunting—namely, low birth weight, lack of exclusive breast feeding, poor hygiene and sanitation, and infectious disease. 30 While wasting is one sign of acute hunger, stunting (being too short for one’s age) represents chronic distress. Around 151 million preschool children were stunted in 2017, down from 200 million at the turn of the 20th century. 14 Improvements were made in east Asia, including China (today reporting a prevalence of only 6% compared with the global mean of 23%) and Bangladesh as well as in Latin America ( table 1 ). 31 Nevertheless, South Asia and East and Central Africa all still had rates over 32% in 2017.

Coexisting forms of malnutrition related to diet

The coexistence of multiple forms of malnutrition is a global phenomenon. That is, wasting often coexists with stunting in the same geographical areas, and can be found simultaneously in children. 32 For example, around 9% of children in India exhibit both conditions, while the rate in parts of Ghana is reported to be >3%. 32 33 Many countries with a high prevalence of stunting have made limited progress in achieving annual average rates of reduction required to meet global targets. For example, Timor Leste needs an annual reduction of around 5% to reduce stunting by 40% by 2030, but its current reduction rate is barely above zero. 9 Ethiopia also needs an annual average rate of reduction of 5%, but continues to remain at 3%.

Part of the reason for slow progress lies in overlapping micronutrient deficiencies. Inadequate supply of energy and protein both impair a child’s growth, but micronutrient deficiencies also have a role. It has been estimated that roughly 2 billion people, or about 29% of the world’s population, faced micronutrient deficiencies in 2010. 34 35 36 37 Micronutrient deficiencies are also widely present in high income countries. For example, childhood anaemia in 2010 was 26% in the Russian Federation and in Georgia, and 16%, on average, across the European Union. 38

Obesity is conventionally associated with food excess, but it is also associated with micronutrient deficiencies and even with daily hunger, as shown for Malaysia, 39 Canada, 40 and Iran. 41 Indeed, people with obesity can be prone to deficiencies of micronutrients, such as zinc, iron, and vitamins A, C, D, and E. 42 43 44 45 46 Between 1990 and 2010, the prevalence of adults with a high BMI in sub-Saharan Africa tripled. At the same time, hypertension increased by 60%, and the prevalence of high blood glucose rose nearly 30%. 47 The prevalence of overweight and obesity among South Asian women is almost the same today as the prevalence of underweight. 6 Pacific and Caribbean islands and countries in the Middle East and Central America have reached extremely high rates of adult overweight and obesity. Some have a prevalence as high as 80% (eg, Tonga, 84% for men, 88% for women). 48

Many countries today face the dual burden of rising rates of female obesity with continuing high rates of maternal underweight. The latter matters because of ill effects on the mother and on the unborn child. Roughly 30% of stunting by a child’s 3rd birthday can be attributed to being born small for gestational age, which is linked to nutrition before birth and health problems of the mother. 28 Not only is maternal underweight still more prevalent than overweight in rural parts of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa but adult female underweight rose recently in Senegal, Madagascar, and Mali, mainly in urban settings. 49

Thus, actions are needed in all countries around the world to deal with undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight and obesity simultaneously. No country is exempt. “Triple duty” investments are needed everywhere because wealth and food sufficiency will not in themselves resolve the problems of low quality of diets.

Effective actions to tackle hunger and malnutrition

In 2016, the world hit a new record by producing over 2.5 billion metric tons of cereal grains—up from 1.8 billion tons 20 years earlier. 50 But hunger persists because an increased supply of food alone is neither the solution to hunger nor an answer to malnutrition. Countries that have made recent progress in reducing hunger and improving nutrition have a core set of common characteristics. Firstly, they tend to be politically stable countries that have pursued relatively equitable growth policies (not only increasing wealth for some but reducing poverty overall). Secondly, they employ targeted safety nets for the poor and invest in accessible services (education, clean water, healthcare). Thirdly, they assume responsibility for responding to shocks (economic, environmental, or due to conflict) in timely ways that mitigate human suffering.

Successful actions typically include a mix of targeted so called nutrition specific programming (aimed at preventing or resolving defined nutrition and health problems in individuals) and nutrition sensitive interventions for the whole population that deal with the underlying causes. 9 32 35 Table 2 provides details of evidence based policies and programmes in a variety of sectors, which are known to reduce hunger and deal with malnutrition. 32 In food and agriculture, these may include national price support interventions that increase the supply and accessibility of nutrient rich foods (often perishables, like dairy, fruits and fresh meats), coupled with technical and financial support for women farmers to produce nutrient rich vegetables in their gardens. In health, national policies to support accessible high quality services are critical to ensuring antenatal and postnatal care, particularly combined with targeted nutrition, exclusive breast feeding, and infant feeding messaging. Measures directed at underweight mothers are important for good birth outcomes, as well as varied forms of micronutrient supplementation. 1 In other words, the quality of services, scale of coverage, and the singling out of nutritionally vulnerable demographic groups are all keys to success. 20 47

Examples of actions to tackle hunger and malnutrition across sectors 3 20 47 51

Good nutrition and eradication of hunger comes at a price, but pays for itself in the longer term. Donor funding for nutrition sensitive programmes rose between 2003 and 2015, from 11.8% to 19.4%, reaching around $19bn (£14bn, €16bn) in 2015. 48 Such assistance is deemed to be effective, in that a 10% increase in overall nutrition sensitive aid delivers an estimated 1.1% “decrease in hunger” (measured as chronic undernourishment). 48 The World Bank has argued that a “priority package” of evidence based nutritional interventions that could be readily scaled up would require roughly $23bn over a decade, or $5 per child. 51 52 The World Bank emphasises that while international donor agencies should increase spending to achieve global nutrition goals, national governments and citizens themselves need to increase spending and act appropriately. The role of individuals and families comes largely in the form of preferences and constraints. 52 People make choices that shape dietary patterns and physical activity but also the uptake of healthcare services, spending on smoking and hygiene, as well as investments in schooling for their children and agricultural productivity (if farmers).

The value of such large investments to future human and economic development has long been understood in high income countries, such as Europe and the United States. European countries deploy a wide range of policies to combat residual hunger. These include promoting more diverse local food production and diversified diets, the latter “encouraged through nutrition education targeting school children and mothers of young children.” 38 The United States also supports large state food provisioning through nutrition programmes aimed at women and children. For example, spending on the federal food stamp programme in 2017 reached $68bn ($126 per person). 53 Similarly, spending on the Women Infants and Children programme, which targets low income families nutritionally at risk with food supplements, nutrition education, and health system referrals, reached $6.5bn in 2017. 54

Conclusions

The sustainable development goals require all countries and their citizens to act together to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030. 13 Setting targets is a good first step, but actions need to follow quickly. Urgent attention to achieve such goals is seriously overdue. Policy action must be designed to reduce malnutrition in all its forms, and be adequately funded. Measures must be evidence based, implemented at scale, and include both broad based and targeted actions aimed at the most nutritionally vulnerable people. The evidence to support such actions is growing, but it is already plentiful and compelling; there is no need for delay. The rapidly escalating threats posed by malnutrition represent a planetary challenge on a par with poverty and climate change. An appropriate response at the required scale is top priority for decision makers globally. It cannot wait.

Key messages

Despite record levels of food production globally, hunger and many forms of malnutrition still affect billions of people

While traditionally associated with a lack of food, hunger, and malnutrition (which includes overweight and obesity as well as undernutrition) are associated with low quality diets

Poor diet quality is a problem in every country—high and low income alike. A high quality diet meets most key nutrient needs, mainly through nutrient rich foods

Securing high quality diets for all, comprising sufficiency, diversity, balance, and safety, is necessary to resolve hunger and malnutrition in all its forms

Policy makers must urgently implement evidence based, cost effective actions that have a triple purpose: eradicate hunger, resolve all forms of undernutrition, and tackle obesity

Governments must consider how policies across multiple sectors influence the functioning of food systems from farm to fork. They must identify changes that will help all consumers to have healthy diets

The challenge is huge, but the urgency has never been so great

Contributors and sources: The authors have diverse subject expertise and policy experience relating to hunger, food insecurity, diets and nutrition. Some authors have a medical or agriculture background, while others have training and experience in policy analysis, nutrition and humanitarian action. PW and GAS were both members of the Global Futures Council on Food Security and Agriculture of the World Economic Forum. PW and AL advise the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. SS is a contributing author to the upcoming EAT Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems. Data used are all in the public domain, and are derived from nationally representative surveys, United Nations agency analyses, or peer reviewed publications. PW, GAS and AL were involved in manuscript concept and design. All authors were involved in drafting and editing the manuscript; critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content and approved the final manuscript and the authorship list. PW is the guarantor.

Competing interests: We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and have no relevant interests to declare.

Provenance and peer review: Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

This article is one of a series commissioned by The BMJ . Open access fees for the series were funded by Swiss Re, which had no input into the commissioning or peer review of the articles. The BMJ thanks the series advisers, Nita Forouhi and Dariush Mozaffarian, for valuable advice and guiding selection of topics in the series.

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ .

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• ↵ Pangaribowo EM, Gerber N, Torero M. 2013. Food and nutrition security indicators: a review. FOODSECURE working paper 04. Report for the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2011 under grant agreement n° 290693. http://www3.lei.wur.nl/WECRGeneral/FoodSecurePublications/05_Pangaribowo%20Gerber%20Torero_FNS%20Indicators.pdf
• ↵ International Food Policy Research Institute. Global nutrition report 2016: from promise to impact: ending malnutrition by 2030. Washington, DC, USA; 2016. http://www.ifpri.org/publication/global-nutrition-report-2016-promise-impact-ending-malnutrition-2030
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• ↵ Famine Early Warning Systems Network. Acute food insecurity: near term (February-May 2017). Washington, DC, USA, 2017. http://fews.net/east-africa/somalia/alert/may-9-2017
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• Speech Writing /

Speech on Zero Hunger in English for School Students

• Updated on  
• Aug 27, 2024

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘Zero Hunger’, right? But what does that phrase really mean? Zero Hunger, as the name suggests, means no hunger, but it is much more than that. It ensures that everyone has equal access to sufficient food to meet their nutritional requirements. In this blog, we will delve into this subject with samples of speech on zero hunger to make it more comprehensive for the students.

Short Speech on Zero Hunger

Also Read: 500+ Words Essay on Sustainable Development with PDF

Long Speech on Zero Hunger

Also Read: Global Warming Speech for Students in English

Ans: According to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, zero hunger is the goal of ensuring that everyone has access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and preferences, as well as the ability to acquire the food they need without compromising their economic, social, or environmental well-being. This is more than just a goal; it is a call to action for humanitarians. 

Ans: Zero Hunger is To fully understand the significance of the situation, we must view hunger as a multifaceted problem. It is more than just a lack of food; it is a complicated combination of poverty, inequality, conflict, climate change, and economic instability. Hunger is both a cause and a result of these concerns, creating a vicious cycle for all individuals and communities that leads to deprivation.

Ans: Our journey to zero hunger is full of challenges, but it doesn’t mean it is impossible. With the proper knowledge, technology, commitment, and willpower, we can make this vision a reality. The government must prioritise food security programmes and ensure their efficient management. Promoting gender equality and assisting women farmers, investing in rural infrastructure, international cooperation, education, and awareness are all critical components in achieving zero hunger on a global level.

Popular English Speech Topics

For more information on such interesting speech topics for your school, visit our speech writing page and follow Leverage Edu .

Bhumika Sharma

A writer with a fresh perspective on thoughts, I have an year of experience in writing the blogs on various topics. Here, you will find my blogs for the students and education purpose.

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Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) 2024

Published by the Food Security Information Network (FSIN) in support of the Global Network against Food Crises (GNAFC), the GRFC 2024 is the reference document for global, regional and country-level acute food insecurity in 2023. The report is the result of a collaborative effort among 16 partners to achieve a consensus-based assessment of acute food insecurity and malnutrition in countries with food crises and aims to inform humanitarian and development action.  

FSIN and Global Network Against Food Crises. 2024. GRFC 2024 . Rome.

When citing this report online please use this link:

https://www.fsinplatform.org/report/global-report-food-crises-2024/

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World + 8 more

5 Ways USAID Is Helping to End World Hunger

We can combat global hunger and malnutrition, but it takes a holistic approach to ensure long-lasting impact

World hunger is on the rise. Today, nearly one in 10 people around the world suffer from hunger.

The solution to combatting hunger seems simple — get food to people in need when they need it. And while we have answered the call time and time again in response to crises and humanitarian need, supporting food security requires much more than filling people’s bellies.

Food security exists when people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to adequate and nutritious food so they can live healthy and productive lives. When individuals and families have access to food, are educated about nutrition and how to be healthy, and can grow more crops and sell more harvests, they can be self-sufficient and resilient to future crises.

We can combat global hunger and malnutrition, but it takes a holistic approach to ensure long-lasting impact. Here are five ways USAID, through efforts like Food for Peace and Feed the Future, is investing in agriculture and food security to end hunger .

1. Improving agriculture to boost incomes

The extreme poor often rely on farming for their livelihoods. However, many smallholder farmers live far from markets where they can make a profit selling their crops. They face challenges like lack of access to credit, resources, and skills needed to improve their harvest.

To ensure farmers are connected to economic opportunities through agriculture, we work with our partners — from the private sector to universities and civil society organizations — to help smallholders get the support, know-how, and access they need to be successful.

For example, in Kenya , smallholder farmers who previously couldn’t compete with larger growers have boosted their crop production, minimized post-harvest losses, and connected to markets with skills gained from USAID. Some are even selling their surplus crops to the UN World Food Program to help feed other communities in drought-prone areas.

Through Feed the Future, in particular, we’re helping developing countries build stronger food systems that provide opportunities for rural communities — from farms to markets to tables — by investing in agriculture and bringing partners together.

2. Teaching shared responsibility for health and nutrition

Educating people on proper nutrition, sanitation and hygiene so they stay healthy is crucial to addressing food insecurity. For example, lack of safe drinking water and poor sanitation and hygiene can lead to waterborne diseases and chronic intestinal infections, robbing children of their potential and keeping farmers from tending to their fields.

Health and nutrition efforts take root when people adopt the right behaviors, such as washing their hands before preparing food. Trainings can empower all household members to share in these responsibilities. In some communities, this has changed the social dynamics in a family, making the distribution of household duties more equitable between men and women.

For example, in Zimbabwe a forward-thinking group of men now collect water for the family — traditionally a woman’s role. They have constructed latrines and handwashing stations, and are training others on proper handwashing and the need to use soap or ash in addition to water.

3. Empowering women in agriculture

Likewise in Uganda , where men typically raise livestock and keep the sales, women are challenging traditional gender roles by learning goat herding skills and generating incomes themselves.

Empowering women to start businesses can help ensure their families earn enough money to put food on the table. In Haiti , female farmers who were once chronically food insecure can now feed their families, expand their businesses and save for their children’s futures. In Senegal , rural women are getting the tools they need with USAID’s help to grow, share, and sell more nutritious food for better health and extra profit.

4. Managing natural resources and preparing for disasters

For communities that rely on natural resources for their income, learning about sustainable resource management is vital. Years of poor management — such as overgrazing by livestock — can degrade farmland, making it difficult for farmers to earn a living.

We also educate communities on the impacts of natural disasters and how to prepare for them.

In Malawi and Ethiopia , we equip farmers and pastoralists with tools and opportunities that help their communities build resilience so they can better withstand crises such as droughts. Helping vulnerable people build resilience to crises is vital to addressing poverty and hunger.

5. Meeting Immediate Needs

We also provide humanitarian assistance to communities in crisis. In emergency situations, such as the aftermath of a natural disaster, we meet the immediate food and nutrition needs of communities through in-kind food, cash transfers or food vouchers.

In Sierra Leone , we helped families get back on their feet after Ebola by providing cash transfers so mothers could buy food for their families. These moms also had an opportunity to join community savings groups, allowing them to start small businesses and farms — and get a head start on a more hopeful future.

About the Authors: Beth Dunford is Assistant to the Administrator in USAID’s Bureau for Food Security and Deputy Coordinator for Development for Feed the Future , the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative. Matthew Nims is Acting Director of USAID’s Office of Food for Peace.

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Extreme Poverty and Hunger: A Vicious Cycle

There’s no way around it: If we want to end poverty, we have to end hunger.

Oct 25, 2022

There’s no way around it: If we want to end poverty, we have to end hunger. Here's how the two are connected.

Somalia is one country that sits high on both lists. The country’s rural northern region is home to Nimco, a young mother of six children. The worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in 40 years has turned the pastoralist landscape of Nimco’s village into a dust bowl. The soil is parched, and any remaining animals are thin and weak. All surface water sources have dried up. Since May of 2022, the community has been decimated: Those with the means left months ago.

Nimco and her four children are among those who stayed, though this was not out of pride or sentimentality. They simply couldn’t afford to leave. Nimco’s husband went off with their few remaining sheep and goats to find water and pasture in other regions. Unfortunately, Nimco — unlike some of the other families in her village — doesn’t have a relative in the city who can help her with buying the bare necessities.

“It was a very difficult situation,” she explains. “We couldn’t afford to buy water or food, and we couldn’t pay our debt.” The combination of poverty and hunger trapped them in a cycle from which they struggle to escape.

Poverty and Hunger: Fast Facts

• According to the World Food Program , as many as 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021 — a 22% increase from 2019 driven largely by the COVID-19 pandemic.
•  In most countries, malnutrition is highest among the poorest 20% of residents.
• In 2020 (the most recent data in 2022), the World Health Organization estimates that 149.2 million children under 5 — about 22% of the population — were stunted .
• The WHO also estimates that, in the same year 45 million children suffered from wasting
• Approximately 45% of child deaths are linked to undernutrition. The majority of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
• The WFP estimates that, in 2020, 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet. This represents a 112 million-person increase from 2019.
• The WFP projects that, by 2030, nearly 670 million people (8% of the global population) will still be hungry, despite the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by that year.

Learn More About Our Fight to End Poverty and Hunger

What causes world hunger.

Hunger is something we’ve all experienced for a variety of reasons. But when we break down hunger into issues like malnutrition, undernutrition, or specific deficiencies (like Vitamin A or Iron), we can more easily measure and design solutions to hunger that work .

That said, there are many causes of world hunger . To narrow things down a bit, we can put these causes into one of two larger categories: physiological causes and poverty-related causes.

Physiological Causes of Hunger

At certain points in our lives, we need more food and nutrients. The first 1,000 days of childhood are crucial for the right amount of nutrients to ensure that we continue developing to our full potential. When puberty hits and we reach adolescence, we go through another phase. For pregnant people, that need once again crops up.

While these life cycles aren’t “bad,” they are causes of hunger in that our nutritional needs increase in this time. Mothers like Nimco often face tough decisions during their pregnancies.

Poverty-Related Causes of Hunger

That’s because of the millions of parents who face restricted resources and are unable to meet their most basic needs. Nimco, for instance, had relied on credit from local shops to feed her young family. As her debts accumulated, however, the shops stopped selling to her.

Both Hunger and Poverty Can Be Intergenerational

Generally, stories like Nimco’s don’t happen out of thin air. The cycle of poverty often runs from one generation to the next, with children born into poverty more likely to live in the same cycle as their parents if there is no intervention. Likewise, hunger and malnutrition can be intergenerational.

Malnourished mothers are also more likely to give birth to malnourished infants. About 20% of stunting in children is attributed to malnutrition in the womb as a result of maternal undernutrition. This means even children who manage to survive being born to malnourished mothers are still less likely to reach their physical and cognitive potential in life.

Furthermore, many of the poverty-related causes of malnutrition, such as food insecurity or poor access to health services, endure for multiple generations of the same family or community.

How Does Poverty Affect Hunger?

Issues relating to hunger can go hand-in-hand with poverty — particularly climate change , conflict , and forced migration . However, all of these situations usually boil down to three key issues. This is a framework Concern uses, one that was developed by UNICEF:

Poor or No Access To A Quality Diet

In some cases, the question is simply whether people can find anything to eat. There is already an overlap of countries experiencing both high levels of poverty and hunger. The human cost of a food shortage will hit on this overlap, leaving those furthest behind with the fewest options in a situation of low supply and high demand.

In South Sudan , people fleeing war have described eating water lilies to survive. In Haiti , a common recipe in areas that face food shortages is bonbon tè, which are cookies made with a special dirt mixed with salt, fat, and water. Pastoralists in drought-struck northern Kenya boil animal hides.

However, even in less dire straits, people with the fewest resources are more likely to lose out on a well-balanced diet and key nutrients, relying on crops like corn for the majority of their diet.

10 Things people do when their food runs out

When people run low on food, they’re forced to make difficult choices — and sometimes the things they must do to survive can have destructive consequences.

Lack of Knowledge, Skills, and Support to Ensure Optimal Care for Women and Children

Education and poverty are also linked , especially when it comes to health and nutrition. The harmful patriarchal and gender norms present in many low-income countries (particularly in rural areas) mean that many women don’t realize the care they need to take while pregnant and nursing. Many parents also rely on traditional methods of treating their children when sick, many of which are ineffectual — and some of which can even be counterproductive.

Educating parents about proper prenatal and pediatric care (and giving them access to trained professionals, no matter how remote their community is) is a key aspect of ending hunger. When caregivers are informed about how to prevent, detect, and treat malnutrition, lives are saved. When expecting parents are aware of how nutrition is passed on to a child during pregnancy, they can take the care to get the nutrients they need in order to start their child off on the best possible foot.

Poor or No Access to Water, Sanitation, and Essential Health Services

Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) as well as other key health services are also linked to poverty and hunger. Sometimes, people (especially children) eat enough. But if they live in an area with insufficient sanitation or poor hygiene practices, they may be susceptible to diarrhea or other waterborne illnesses that prevent them from absorbing those nutrients. Making sure that drinking and washing water are uncontaminated can save a life — in more ways than one.

Likewise, essential healthcare services are, well, essential to ending hunger. This is especially true for women and children, who often don’t get adequate care or nutritional screenings at key moments in life.

Drought is also a key issue. “Before the drought, we had 40 sheep and goats. We depended on our livestock as we used to sell milk, meat, sheep, or goats,” Nimco explains. She lost all but 11 of her flock. “This is not the first drought,” she adds. “The drought has been here for the last two and a half years. Now we do not have anything to trade or anywhere to go. We are trapped in this tiny village.”

Why (and How) Concern Tackles Both Poverty and Hunger

Concern’s mandate is to end extreme poverty (whatever it takes). But we won’t end poverty until we also end hunger. If poverty is a combination between inequality and risk, then unger creates vulnerability. This in turn feeds into the risks that fuel poverty. Food insecurity itself can also be an inequality within a community, or simply signal the other inequalities within that community.

Human development is not possible without good nutrition — particularly for women and young children. Stark evidence now demonstrates the enormous scale of nutritional issues in low-income countries, as well as their human and financial costs. As a result, Concern — like many other NGOs, as well as governments and UN agencies, has made unprecedented commitments to prioritize nutrition in our work around the globe.

Currently, our nutrition strategy is to focus efforts on reducing hunger and malnutrition among adolescent girls, women of reproductive age, and children under the age of 5. We work with adolescent girls to understand how to take care of themselves and advocate for their health and nutrition so that those who eventually become mothers bring a solid nutritional foundation to their pregnancies. We do the same with pregnant and lactating mothers, working with them to track and maintain their vitamin and nutrient levels. Some of our projects focus specifically on the first 1,000 days between conception and a child’s second birthday to prevent malnutrition in this critical time. Other programs, like Community Management of Acute Malnutrition , screen and treat children up to the age of 5 (and even older) with overwhelmingly positive results and standard-setting cure rates.

A few other ways Concern approaches hunger in context of our work to end poverty include:

• Supporting nutrition-sensitive agriculture and crop diversity to ensure that families have the full range of nutrients they need
• Promote nutrition-sensitive social protection and natural resource management, placing nutrition and health at the forefront of responses to other emergencies such as climate change and conflict
• Working more largely towards gender equality and gender transformative programming
• Working more largely towards improving access to water and sanitation services, while also promoting optimal nutrition, health, and hygiene behaviors
• Increasing access to quality education, especially for girls
• Strengthening local and national health systems so that they can deliver integrated nutrition services (such as CMAM) without ongoing support from Concern

Back in rural Somalia, Nimco has found some relief from the poverty and hunger trap into which her family had fallen. Unconditional cash transfers from Concern have allowed her to buy food and water, and to pay off some of the debt that was weighing the family down.

It’s a short-term solution for sure, but it has slowed a spiral from which the family might never have recovered. Meanwhile, programs that support alternative sources of food production and income generation are the bedrock upon which families like Nimco’s can build their resilience to poverty and climate shock. For Concern’s teams in countries like Somalia, it’s programs like these that will ultimately help break the vicious cycle that ruins so many lives around the world.

Our Work: Health & nutrition

Ending global extreme poverty requires us to focus on two of its root issues: health & nutrition. You can help us with both.

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