Africa records spike in hunger, 282m people undernourished – UN

The UN report says between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020.

Global hunger levels have skyrocketed because of conflicts, climate change and the economic impact of COVID-19 as between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020.

The information is in a report on the “State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021 (SOFI), jointly published by five UN agencies on Monday.

It stated that more people faced hunger and malnutrition in 2020 than before.

The report is jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO)

According to the report, the pandemic continues to expose weaknesses in food systems, which threaten the lives and livelihoods of people around the world.

The heads of the agencies wrote in the report that “around a tenth of the global population – between 720 million people and 811 million – were undernourished last year.

“Some 418 million of that number were in Asia and 282 million were in Africa.

“Globally, 2.4 billion people did not have access to sufficiently nutritious food in 2020 – an increase of nearly 320 million people in one year.”