Global hunger levels to stay high for another 136 years - new Global Hunger Index reveals

The 2024 Global Hunger Index (GHI) found that at least 64 countries will not reach even low hunger levels until the year 2160 if progress to tackle hunger remains at the same pace observed since 2016.

It reveals that hunger levels are at serious or alarming levels in 42 countries and that progress in addressing hunger has stagnated.

Conflicts have led to exceptional food crises and raised the spectre of famine in countries and territories like Gaza and Sudan (where there is already famine in the North Darfur region) the GHI warns.

The sobering report - published by Irish humanitarian organisation Concern Worldwide and German aid agency Welthungerhilfe – states that the chances of achieving zero hunger by 2030, a goal set by UN member states in 2012, are “grim” and unlikely.

Of the 136 countries examined, 36 have levels considered serious while six at the bottom of the index have alarming hunger levels, indicating widespread human misery, undernourishment, and malnutrition. They are Somalia, Yemen, Chad, Madagascar, Burundi and South Sudan.

It states that in 2023, 281.6 million people in 59 countries and territories faced crisis-level or acute food insecurity including Gaza, Sudan, Haiti and Burkina Faso, which are all countries where Concern supports the most vulnerable people.

It also states that Africa south of the Sahara and South Asia are the regions with the worst levels of hunger.

The report shows that there has been notable progress made to tackle hunger between 2000 and 2016 and it states that this shows how much can be accomplished in just a decade and a half – however it notes that this progress has slowed over the last eight years.

“The findings in the latest GHI report are extremely worrying and upsetting,” said Concern Worldwide’s Chief Executive David Regan, who has witnessed first-hand the impact of hunger in many of the world’s poorest countries.

“The world should not have to wait over 136 years for low hunger levels to be achieved.

“More must be done to guarantee that everyone has the right to food so that we can prevent famine and treat malnutrition early. We should not have situations where children are so hungry and malnourished that they can’t even speak or cry.

“Globally, around 733 million people face hunger each day due to a lack of access to a sufficient amount of food. Around 2.8 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet.

“That hunger persists on such a huge scale with all the resources in the modern world is deeply troubling. 

“It is also alarming that progress made in addressing hunger has stalled largely due to widespread conflicts, and the increasing impacts of climate change.

“Acute food insecurity and the risk of famine are rising and starvation is proliferating as a weapon of war.”

This year’s GHI report highlights the links between gender inequality, food insecurity and climate change, showing how these challenges combine and put households, communities and countries under extreme stress.  

The report contains an essay by academics from universities in England, the Netherlands and Ghana outlining how “gender justice” and equality are central to effective climate action and food systems transformation. 

“Inequality is amplified when living in extreme poverty,” added David Regan.

“The essay in the Global Hunger Index highlights how gender discrimination limits people’s access to and control over resources, which in turn limits their ability to cope with climate shocks and food insecurity.

“Governments must invest in and promote gender equality and climate change and recognise and deliver on the right to food so that all people are assured the right to food.”

The GHI, now in its 19th year, ranks countries based on recorded levels of undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality. 

To read the 2024 GHI report visit https://www.globalhungerindex.org/.

ENDS

For more information or interview requests, please contact Kevin Jenkinson at [email protected].