The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the war in Ukraine demonstrated that progress shown in the combat against world hunger was at best fragile. It is unclear how hunger could regress sustainably as long as our societies remain extremely unequal.
Facts and figures: Despite progress in Asia, food insecurity remains widespread (August 2025)
More articles on world hunger published on hungerexplained.org
August 2024 – World food insecurity back to what it was 15 years ago – Despite progress made in some large countries, food insecurity is on the rise in many parts of the world… [read]
11 January 2024 – The food situation in the Sahel is deteriorating – Despite a growing agricultural production, the number of people in a situation of food insecurity requiring serious assistance jumped from 4 million to nearly 32 million in 5 years. [read]
2023
August 2023 – Facts and figures on world food insecurity and malnutrition – Food insecurity stable globally, but still on the rise in Africa, SDGs out of reach – Unless efforts are redoubled and better targeted, the objective set by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of “ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030 will remain out of reach”. [read]
18 July 2023 – Inequality in food systems – Is it realistic to believe that food systems could become more equal in an unequal society? Market and economic laws or rights? Is food just another commodity? Can the solution to food inequality be found in actions within food systems only? [read]
2022
July 2022 – Facts and figures on world food insecurity and malnutrition – Food insecurity is on the rise, a consequence of the current food crisis – Food insecurity and hunger continue to rise worldwide, as a result of the combined effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and of the mismanagement of the global food system, soon amplified by the disturbances created by the Ukraine war. [read]
June 2022 – Ukraine war and food crisis: facts and debates – Nature and causes of the crisis, food as weapon, impacts and possible solutions. [read]
2021
November 2021 – Opinions: The importance of cooperation and solidarity in fighting hunger and poverty by Daniel Gustafson – To make an impact on poverty and hunger, root causes of marginalization of the poor and hungry must be tackled. This requires more solidarity and cooperation, and overcoming divisions and conflicts. [read]
August 2021 – Facts and figures on world food insecurity and malnutrition – The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic [read]
31 May 2021 – The COVID-19 pandemic hits harder urban areas and women – Little by little, the magnitude of the impact of the pandemic on poverty and hunger in the world is getting clearer. [read]
2020
August 2020 – Facts and figures on world food insecurity – An alarming deterioration. Despite reiterated commitments and a long series of declarations made by governments over decades, the world is off track: the end of hunger, of food insecurity and of all forms of malnutrition seems out of reach… [read]
22 April 2020 – COVID-19 and food: the economic and food crisis hits the more vulnerable – some insights. The COVID-19 crisis is beginning to seriously shake the food system throughout the world, pushing a growing number of people into food insecurity and tragedy. [read]
Mars 2020 – Food security and sustainability: should we add a sustainability dimension to food security? We have to recognize that successive objectives of reduction of food insecurity fixed since 1996 have not been achieved. In 2021, on the occasion of the planned World Food Systems Summit, it may be that the concept of food security should be revisited to include the dimension of sustainability. [read]
2019
20 October 2019 – Urbanisation of hunger: the rural drift drives hunger to the cities – Once in the cities, most rural migrants are very vulnerable. More than 60% of the money they earn will go straight into the purchase of food. [read]
17 October 2019 – The triple burden of malnutrition is getting heavier in the world, says UNICEF – The triple burden of malnutrition – undernutrition, hidden hunger and overweight – threatens the survival, growth and development of children. [read]
July 2019 – Facts and figures on world malnutrition – While hunger increases, overweight and obesity also increase even at a faster rate! Unless policies followed by countries change, the world food situation will continue to deteriorate, with its huge cost in terms of human lives and suffering. [read]
10 March 2019 – Can the food issue be reduced to a question of production? A sustainable solution to the food issue will only be found if there are in-depth changes both in the way our food is being produced and consumed. This will require to challenge the paradigm that underpins the world economy and causes intolerable inequalities. [read]
2018
September 2018 – Facts and figures on world malnutrition – World malnutrion continues to rise: the number of undernourished people is still on the increase and overeating, with its corollaries, overweight and obesity, progress everywhere in the world. [read]
24 January 2018 – Are industrial megafarms the solution for feeding the world? The answer is clearly “no” : they do not offer a sustainable solution to the food issue, be it from a technical, environmental, social or even economic perspective [read].
2017
September 2017 – Facts and figures on world hunger – For the first time since 2003, the number of undernourished persons in the world increased, according to the UN [read]
17 February 2017 – After pockets, corridors and now, what next? In Africa, development corridors were to help solve the food issue. Where do we really stand? [read]
2016
1 October 2016 – The impact of the 2007-2008 food security crisis: the uncounted social and economic cost of resilience – Behind the misleading picture given by statistics, the food crisis has produced structural changes that created more economic vulnerability health hazards and potential social and political time bombs. [read]
2015
26 September 2015 – Modalities for implementing the right to food: the debate – The lessons of more than a decade of debates that led to the approval of the new Indian Food Security Act. [read]
17 August 2015 – Social programmes: consensus on their usefulness, disagreement on their funding [read]
27 July 2015 – Strengths and weaknesses of the agreement reached at the Addis Ababa Conference on Financing for Development – Although it makes steps into the right direction, the Addis agreement remains incomplete and lacks a proper commitment towards concrete action required to eradicate hunger and poverty. [read]
June 2015 – Facts and figures on world hunger 2015. [read]
13 June 2015 – The latest report on the State of World Food Insecurity admits that the Millenium Development Goal 1 to reduce hunger by half will not be achieved [read]
March 2015 – Myths on hunger debunked – In order to combat hunger, it is necessary to have a better grasp of what hunger is all about and debunk some widely held myths. [read]
2014
December 2014 – Facts and figures on world hunger 2014. [read]
8 December 2014 – More resources are needed to combat hunger in rich countries (United Kingdom, France and the United-States). [read]
3 December 2014 – One year before the deadline, about half of the so-called ‘developing countries’ have achieved their Millennium Development Goal on hunger – 63 countries have now reduced by half the proportion of their population who is undernourished and 25 countries have reduced by half the number of undernourished. [read]
16 November 2014 – Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2): Will the real issues be discussed and what can we expect? More than twenty years after the Conference on Nutrition of 1992, countries meet to agree on the measures to take to improve word nutrition. But some key questions will not be considered. [read]
17 September 2014 – According to FAO, WFP and IFAD, the MDG on hunger can still be achieved : truth or wishful thinking? The number of chronically undernourished are said to be decreasing worldwide, but very slowly, and in some regions, they are still on the increase. Are the Rome-based agencies addressing the right issues in their fight against hunger and food insecurity? [read]
18 March 2014 – Hunger is a political issue: its eradication will require more democracy – Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur of the UN on the right to food, submitted his terminal report to the UN Human Rights Council at the end of his six-year tenure. His diagnosis on the world food situation is uncompromising, and he formulates very relevant recommendations. [read]
26 February 2014 – Trends in food and agricultural policies: short term decisions likely to jeopardise transition to sustainable agriculture and hunger eradication – In a recent publication FAO presents the results of the work conducted through its Food and Agriculture Policy Decision Analysis (FAPDA) project since 2007. Trends in policy decisions taken in more than 70 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are analysed over the 2007-2012 period. [read]
2 February 2014 – The world of tomorrow: the worrying vision of the High-Level Panel of eminent persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda – A righteous ‘‘apolitical’’ world, made of individual producers and consumers left to the market, where development is dominated by major pension funds, mutual funds, sovereign wealth funds and large private corporations. Is it too late to prevent this from happening? [read]
6 January 2014 – Letting people die from hunger should be recognised as a crime against humanity – Hunger is the result of deliberate decisions taken by governments. Abandoning a population to hunger, neglecting to take the measures required to ensure adequate food to all, must be recognised as a crime against humanity, so that political leaders can be put in front of their responsibilities and forced to act to eliminate hunger. [read]
2013
11 November 2013 – India approves the largest ever food security programme – The Upper House of the Indian Parliament has recently approved a programme of around $20 billion that will help 800 million beneficiaries. [read]
3 November 2013 – The Global Hunger Index published by IFPRI shows an improvement in the world food and nutrition situation – Published for the eighth consecutive year, the IFPRI index shows an improvement in the food and nutrition in all regions of the world and in the great majority of countries for which data are available. [read]
26 October 2013 – The Right to Food: progress and limits – In his last report, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food describes the emergence of a global Right to Food movement. A rapid look at the world food situation suggests however that the recognition of the Right to Food is not sufficient to reduce hunger in the concerned countries. [read]
2 October 2013 – According to FAO, the number of undernourished people has decreased by 24 million in one year [read]
14 June 2013 – Hunger, markets and good feelings: how hunger feeds profits of multinationals [read]
6 April 2013 – 1,000 days before the hunger MDG deadline: Humankind on a drunken boat [read]
March 2013 – Facts and figures on world hunger 2013. [read]
19 February 2013 – What is the real number of hungry people in the world? [read]
Earlier articles (in French only) can be found here