The State of Food Security and Nutrition in The World 2021 (SOFI 2021)

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021 (SOFI, formerly the State of Food and Agriculture) is the first evidence-based global assessment of chronic food insecurity since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. For the third time in a row, it was launched during the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. For the fifth time, it has been co-written by five major institutions in the field of global development; the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Frightening numbers, multiple causes
SOFI 2021 starts with presenting the situation in data, and the stats are alarming; about 10% of the world population were suffering from undernourishment in 2020, which represent an increase of up to 166 million people since 2019, whereas the numbers had stagnated over the past previous years. The scenario is even more alarming for children: 29% are undernourished, while 6% are overweight. Moreover, women are particularly hit, one third of all women have an iron deficiency. Overall, nearly 30% of the entire global population faced food shortages or difficulties to access healthy food at some point during 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the world how fragile food provisioning and accessibility can be in certain areas. Nevertheless, the root causes of hunger remain the same. The report names conflicts, climate extremes and variability, economic slowdowns and downturns, the high costs of healthy diets and poverty and inequality amongst certain population groups as the main drivers of hunger worldwide. In countries where these drivers co-exist, the situation is even more challenging. In the sense that food systems are interlinkages of its various components, all these issues need to be addressed jointly. For full articel please Read siani.se