‘Zero Hunger’ by 2030: a goal becomes a mirage

“Despite hopes that the world would emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and food security would begin to improve, the level of world hunger rose further last year.

After remaining relatively unchanged since 2015, the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) jumped from 8% in 2019 to 9,3% in 2020, and then to 9,8% in 2021. It is estimated that between 702 million and 828 million people were affected by hunger last year. That number has grown by around 150 million since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic (103 million more people between 2019 and 2020, and 46 million more in 2021).

The further increase in global hunger