Global Hunger Index

2023 Global Hunger Index by Severity

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool that attempts to measure and track hunger globally as well as by region and by country, prepared by European NGOs of Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe. The GHI is calculated annually, and its results appear in a report issued in October each year.

The 2023 Global Hunger Index shows shows that, though some countries have made significant headway, little progress has been made in reducing hunger on a global scale since 2015. The 2023 GHI score for the world is 18.3, considered moderate — less than one point below the world's 2015 GHI score of 19.1. Furthermore, since 2017 the prevalence of undernourishment, one of the indicators used in the calculation of GHI scores, has been on the rise, and the number of undernourished people has climbed from 572 million to about 735 million. South Asia and Africa South of the Sahara are the world regions with the highest hunger levels, with GHI scores of 27.0 each, indicating serious hunger. For the past two decades, these two regions have consistently had the highest levels of hunger. While both regions achieved considerable progress between 2000 and 2015, progress since 2015 has nearly halted, mirroring the trend seen for the world as a whole.

Global Hunger Index Report

Created in 2006, the GHI was initially published by the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Germany-based Welthungerhilfe. In 2007, the Irish NGO Concern Worldwide also became a co-publisher. In 2018, IFPRI withdrew from the project and the GHI became a joint project of Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide.

The Global Hunger Index presents a multidimensional measure of national, regional, and global hunger by assigning a numerical score based on several aspects of hunger. Countries are then ranked by GHI score and compared to previous scores from three reference years (e.g., the 2023 GHI scores can be directly compared to 2000, 2008 and 2015 GHI scores) to provide an assessment of progress over time. In addition to presenting GHI scores, the GHI includes an essay that covers an annually changing focus topic related to hunger.

The 2023 report focuses on the central role youth must play in transforming food systems. Young people are emerging into adulthood in a context of unequal and unsustainable food systems that fail to deliver food and nutrition security and are highly vulnerable to climate change and environmental degradation. Yet youth participation in making decisions that will affect their futures is limited. The pursuit of food sovereignty — the right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods—presents an opportunity to engage youth in transforming failing food systems. Young people can apply their energy and innovation to help food systems become more sustainable, more just, and better able to meet the needs of all the world's people, especially the most vulnerable.

Calculation of GHI scores

GHI scores

Level	Value
Low	≤ 9.9
Moderate	10.0-19.9
Serious	20.0-34.9
Alarming	35.0-49.9
Extremely alarming	≥ 50.0

Based on the values of the four indicators, a GHI score is calculated on a 100-point scale reflecting the severity of hunger, where 0 is the best possible score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst. Each country's GHI score is classified by severity, from low to extremely alarming.

The GHI combines 4 component indicators:

• Undernourishment: the share of the population with insufficient caloric intake.
• Child stunting: the share of children under age five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition.
• Child wasting: the share of children under age five who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition.
• Child mortality: the share of children who die before their fifth birthday, partly reflecting the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments.

In 2023, data were assessed for the 136 countries that met the criteria for inclusion in the GHI, and GHI scores were calculated for 125 of those countries based on data from 2000 to 2023. The data used to calculate GHI scores come from published United Nations sources (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Health Organization, UNICEF, and Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation), the World Bank, and Demographic and Health Surveys.

For 11 countries, individual scores could not be calculated, and ranks could not be determined owing to lack of data. 5 countries were provisionally designated by severity based on other published data. For the remaining 6 countries, data were insufficient to allow for either calculating GHI scores or assigning provisional categories.

In previous years, topics included:

• 2010: Early childhood undernutrition among children younger than the age of two.
• 2011: Rising and more volatile food prices of the recent years and the effects these changes have on hunger and malnutrition.
• 2012: Achieving food security and sustainable use of natural resources, when the natural sources of food become increasingly scarce.
• 2013: Strengthening community resilience against undernutrition and malnutrition.
• 2014: Hidden hunger, a form of undernutrition characterized by micronutrient deficiencies.
• 2015: Armed conflict and its relation to hunger.
• 2016: Reaching the UN Sustainable Development Goal of zero hunger by 2030.
• 2017: The challenges of inequality and hunger.
• 2018: Forced migration and hunger.
• 2019: Climate change and hunger.
• 2020: One decade to Zero Hunger: Linking health and sustainable food systems".
• 2021: Hunger and Food Systems in Conflict Settings.
• 2022: Food Systems Transformation and Local Governance.
• 2023: The Power of Youth in Shaping Food Systems.

In addition to the yearly GHI, the Hunger Index for the States of India (ISHI) was published in 2008 and the Sub-National Hunger Index for Ethiopia was published in 2009.

An interactive map allows users to visualize the data for different years and zoom into specific regions or countries.

Global and Regional Trends in Hunger

According to the 2023 GHI scores and provisional designations, hunger remains serious or alarming in 43 countries. 9 countries have alarming levels of hunger: Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen. In a further 34 countries, hunger is considered serious. Many countries have seen hunger worsen in recent years: since 2015, hunger has increased in 18 countries with moderate, serious, or alarming 2023 GHI scores. An additional 14 countries with moderate, serious, or alarming 2023 GHI scores experienced a decline of less than 5 percent between their 2015 and 2023 GHI scores, indicating negligible progress during that period. At the current pace, 58 countries will not achieve low hunger by 2030. Nonetheless, there are also examples of progress. 7 countries whose 2000 GHI scores indicated extremely alarming hunger levels—Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Zambia—have all made progress since then. Also, seven countries have achieved reductions of five points or more between their 2015 and 2023 GHI scores: Bangladesh, Chad, Djibouti, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Mozambique, Nepal, and Timor-Leste. These reductions in hunger are particularly impressive given the challenges facing the world and the stagnation in hunger levels at the global level in recent years.

Overlapping crises, including the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and multiple violent conflicts and climate disasters around the world, have pushed some countries into food crises, while other countries have been more resilient. Low- and middle-income countries, which tend to be more vulnerable to crises, have been particularly hard hit relative to high-income countries. The extent to which countries are able to recover from shocks depends largely on underlying factors, such as state fragility, inequality, poor governance, and chronic poverty. Given that the world is expected to be subject to increased shocks in future years, particularly as a result of climate change, the effectiveness of disaster preparedness and response is likely to become increasingly central to the outlook on food security.

South Asia and Africa South of the Sahara are the world regions with the highest hunger levels, with GHI scores of 27.0 each, indicating serious hunger in both regions. For the past two decades, these two regions have consistently had the highest levels of hunger, which were considered alarming in 2000 and serious according to the 2008 and 2015 GHI scores. While both South Asia and Africa South of the Sahara achieved considerable progress between 2000 and 2015, a comparison of the 2015 and 2023 scores shows that progress has nearly halted, reflecting the trend seen for the world as a whole.

West Asia and North Africa is the region with the third-highest hunger level according to 2023 GHI scores. With a 2023 GHI score of 11.9, West Asia and North Africa's hunger level is considered moderate. Conflict-torn Yemen and Syria have the highest country-level 2023 GHI scores in the region, at 39.9 and 26.1, respectively. The region is contending with looming threats, including growing water scarcity and the increasing effects of climate change. Climate change, its effects on agricultural production, and rapid population growth are projected to increase the region's high level of dependence on food imports in the coming years. These growing resource constraints are expected to exacerbate governance issues in the region and possibly contribute to future conflicts.

Country rankings

Country rankings as per the Global Hunger Index.

Legend

Countries where hunger is low (GHI ≤9.9)

Countries where hunger is moderate (GHI = 10.0–19.9)

Countries where hunger is serious (GHI = 20.0–34.9)

Countries where hunger is alarming (GHI = 35.0–49.9)

Countries where hunger is extremely alarming (GHI ≥50.0)

Rank in 2023	Rank in 2015	Country	2000	2008	2015	2023	Absolute change since 2015	Percent change since 2015
1-20	1-15	Belarus	<5	<5	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	19	Bosnia and Herzegovina	9.4	6.5	5.3	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	Chile	<5	<5	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	China (more info)	13.4	7.1	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	Croatia	<5	<5	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	Estonia	<5	<5	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	Georgia	12.1	6.6	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	16	Hungary	6.7	5.6	5.0	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	Kuwait	<5	<5	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	Latvia	<5	<5	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	Lithuania	7.6	5.1	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	Moldova	18.6	17.0	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	Montenegro	—	5.2	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	19	North Macedonia	7.5	5.3	5.3	<5	—	—
1-20	17	Romania	7.9	5.8	5.1	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	Serbia	—	5.8	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	24	Slovakia	7.2	5.7	5.7	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	Turkey	10.1	5.7	<5	<5	—	—
1-20	23	United Arab Emirates	<5	6.8	5.6	<5	—	—
1-20	1-15	Uruguay	7.6	5.3	<5	<5	—	—
21	26	Uzbekistan	24.2	14.9	5.9	5.0	-0.9	-15.3
22	1-15	Costa Rica	6.9	<5	<5	5.1	—	—
23	32	Bulgaria	8.6	7.7	7.3	5.4	-1.9	-26.0
24	24	Kazakhstan	11.3	11.0	5.7	5.5	-0.2	-3.5
25	27	Armenia	19.2	11.7	6.3	5.6	-0.7	-11.1
26	27	Russia	10.2	5.8	6.3	5.8	-0.5	-7.9
27	29	Tunisia	10.3	7.4	6.4	5.9	-0.5	-7.8
28	30	Mexico (more info)	10.2	9.9	6.7	6.0	-0.7	-10.4
28	17	Paraguay	11.8	10.1	5.1	6.0	0.9	17.6
30	40	Albania	16.4	15.5	8.8	6.1	-2.7	-30.7
31	19	Argentina	6.8	5.5	5.3	6.4	1.1	20.8
32	22	Brazil (more info)	11.7	6.8	5.4	6.7	1.3	24.1
33	37	Algeria (more info)	14.7	11.1	8.5	6.8	-1.7	-20.0
34	44	Azerbaijan	24.9	15.0	9.3	6.9	-2.4	-25.8
35	34	Colombia	11.0	10.2	7.5	7.0	-0.5	-6.7
36	35	Peru	20.6	14.0	7.7	7.2	-0.5	-6.5
37	41	Saudi Arabia	12.3	10.6	9.1	7.3	-1.8	-19.8
38	38	Jamaica	8.5	8.6	8.6	7.5	-1.1	-12.8
38	41	Kyrgyzstan	17.5	12.9	9.1	7.5	-1.6	-17.6
38	33	Mongolia	29.9	16.7	7.4	7.5	0.1	1.4
41	35	Iran	13.7	8.8	7.7	7.7	0.0	0.0
42	39	Panama	18.6	13.0	8.7	7.9	-0.8	-9.2
43	47	El Salvador	14.7	12.0	9.8	8.1	-1.7	-17.3
44	31	Ukraine (famine)	13.0	7.1	7.1	8.2	1.1	15.5
45	52	Oman	14.8	11.2	11.2	8.3	-2.9	-25.9
46	45	Dominican Republic	15.1	13.9	9.4	8.6	-0.8	-8.5
47	41	Morocco	15.8	12.2	9.1	9.0	-0.1	-1.1
48	53	Guyana	17.2	15.1	11.3	9.3	-2.0	-17.7
49	48	Fiji	9.3	8.6	10.4	9.7	-0.7	-6.7
—	—	Lebanon	—	—	—	0–9.9	—	—
50	54	Turkmenistan	20.3	14.5	11.4	10.3	-1.1	-9.6
51	49	Suriname	15.1	11.0	10.6	10.4	-0.2	-1.9
51	45	Thailand	18.7	12.2	9.4	10.4	1.0	10.6
53	50	Trinidad and Tobago	11.0	10.7	10.7	10.8	0.1	0.9
54	59	Vietnam	26.1	20.1	14.5	11.4	-3.1	-21.4
55	60	Cape Verde	15.7	12.4	14.6	12.4	-2.2	-15.1
56	56	Malaysia	15.4	13.7	12.0	12.5	0.5	4.2
57	64	Egypt	16.4	16.9	15.2	12.8	-2.4	-15.8
58	60	Nicaragua	22.3	17.5	14.6	13.0	-1.6	-11.0
58	58	South Africa	18.0	16.8	13.9	13.0	-0.9	-6.5
60	68	Sri Lanka	21.7	17.6	17.1	13.3	-3.8	-22.2
61	57	Mauritius	15.4	13.9	13.5	13.6	0.1	0.7
62	65	Ghana	28.5	22.2	15.7	13.7	-2.0	-12.7
62	67	Tajikistan (famine)	40.1	29.9	16.9	13.7	-3.2	-18.9
64	66	Iraq	23.6	20.3	16.5	13.8	-2.7	-16.4
65	55	Ecuador	19.7	18.1	11.7	14.5	2.8	23.9
66	72	Philippines (more info)	25.0	19.1	18.3	14.8	-3.5	-19.1
67	74	Cambodia	41.4	25.6	19.0	14.9	-4.1	-21.6
67	63	Honduras	22.0	19.2	15.0	14.9	-0.1	-0.7
69	78	Nepal	37.2	29.0	21.3	15.0	-6.3	-29.6
69	71	Senegal	34.3	21.8	18.0	15.0	-3.0	-16.7
71	62	Bolivia	27.6	22.1	14.7	15.6	0.9	6.1
72	73	Libya	16.6	12.8	18.5	16.1	-2.4	-13.0
72	69	Myanmar	40.2	29.7	17.3	16.1	-1.2	-6.9
74	79	Laos	44.3	30.4	21.8	16.3	-5.5	-25.2
75	75	Eswatini	24.7	25.0	19.3	17.3	-2.0	-10.4
75	51	Venezuela (more info)	14.6	8.8	11.1	17.3	6.2	55.9
77	80	Indonesia	26.0	28.5	21.9	17.6	-4.3	-19.6
78	82	Namibia	26.4	29.2	22.2	18.0	-4.2	-18.9
79	77	Cameroon	36.0	29.0	20.7	18.6	-2.1	-10.1
80	69	Gabon	21.0	20.2	17.3	18.7	1.4	8.1
81	96	Bangladesh (famine)	33.8	30.6	26.2	19.0	-7.2	-27.5
82	76	Guatemala	28.6	24.0	20.6	19.1	-1.5	-7.3
83	88	Solomon Islands	20.2	18.2	23.4	19.6	-3.8	-16.2
84	91	Gambia	29.2	24.9	24.3	19.7	-4.6	-18.9
85	82	Botswana	27.2	26.8	22.2	19.9	-2.3	-10.4
85	—	Jordan	—	—	—	10–19.9	—	—
86	81	Ivory Coast	32.5	36.0	22.1	20.6	-1.5	-6.8
87	84	Mauritania	30.5	18.8	22.4	21.0	-1.4	-6.2
88	86	Malawi (famine)	43.1	29.2	22.9	21.1	-1.8	-7.9
88	94	Togo	38.2	29.6	25.7	21.1	-4.6	-17.9
90	85	Kenya	36.7	29.5	22.5	22.0	-0.5	-2.2
91	87	Benin (more info)	33.9	26.4	23.3	22.6	-0.7	-3.0
92	90	Comoros	38.2	30.4	24.0	22.7	-1.3	-5.4
93	110	Djibouti	44.4	33.9	29.6	23.0	-6.6	-22.3
94	92	Tanzania (more info)	40.7	30.2	24.6	23.2	-1.4	-5.7
95	101	Uganda	35.0	29.0	27.8	25.2	-2.6	-9.4
96	104	Rwanda	49.7	33.1	28.3	25.4	-2.9	-10.2
97	103	Burkina Faso (more info)	45.0	33.7	28.0	25.5	-2.5	-8.9
98	99	Mali	41.9	32.2	27.1	25.6	-1.5	-5.5
99	94	Angola	64.9	42.9	25.7	25.9	0.2	0.8
100	89	Syria (famine)	13.9	16.2	23.9	26.1	2.2	9.2
101	98	Ethiopia (more info)	53.3	40.5	26.5	26.2	-0.3	-1.1
102	108	Pakistan	36.7	31.3	28.8	26.6	-2.2	-7.6
103	106	Sudan (famine)	—	—	28.5	27.0	-1.5	-5.3
104	105	Guinea	40.2	29.3	28.4	27.1	-1.3	-4.6
105	106	Papua New Guinea	33.5	32.9	28.5	27.4	-1.1	-3.9
106	93	North Korea (famine)	39.5	30.4	24.8	27.8	3.0	12.1
107	96	Republic of the Congo	34.6	32.4	26.2	28.0	1.8	6.9
107	100	Zimbabwe (famine)	35.5	30.7	27.6	28.0	0.4	1.4
109	101	Nigeria (more info)	39.9	31.2	27.8	28.3	0.5	1.8
110	116	Zambia	53.2	44.9	33.2	28.5	-4.7	-14.2
111	109	India (more info) (famine)	38.4	35.5	29.2	28.7	-0.5	-1.7
112	119	Timor-Leste	—	46.5	35.9	29.9	-6.0	-16.7
113	121	Mozambique (more info)	48.2	35.6	37.0	30.5	-6.5	-17.6
114	112	Afghanistan (more info)	49.6	36.5	30.4	30.6	0.2	0.7
115	111	Haiti	40.3	40.2	30.1	31.1	1.0	3.3
116	114	Sierra Leone	57.4	45.4	32.8	31.3	-1.5	-4.6
117	115	Liberia	48.0	36.4	32.9	32.2	-0.7	-2.1
118	117	Guinea-Bissau	37.7	29.6	33.3	33.0	-0.3	-0.9
119	123	Chad (more info)	50.6	49.9	40.1	34.6	-5.5	-13.7
120	118	Niger	53.3	39.5	35.2	35.1	-0.1	-0.3
121	113	Lesotho	32.5	27.8	30.6	35.5	4.9	16.0
122	120	Democratic Republic of the Congo	46.3	40.2	36.4	35.7	-0.7	-1.9
123	124	Yemen (famine)	41.4	37.8	42.1	39.9	-2.2	-5.2
124	122	Madagascar (more info)	42.4	36.6	38.9	41.0	2.1	5.4
125	125	Central African Republic	48.2	43.7	44.0	42.3	-1.7	-3.9
125	—	Somalia (famine)	63.6	59.2	—	35–49.9	—	—
125	—	Burundi	—	—	—	35–49.9	—	—
125	—	South Sudan	—	—	—	35–49.9	—	—
For the 2023 GHI report, data were assessed for 136 countries. Out of these, there were sufficient data to calculate 2023 GHI scores for and rank 125 countries (by way of comparison, 121 countries were ranked in the 2022 report). If "—" sign is shown, data are not available or not presented. Some countries did not exist in their present borders in the given year or reference period.

2023 GHI: The Power of Youth in Shaping Food Systems

The 2023 Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows that, after many years of advancement up to 2015, progress against hunger worldwide remains largely at a standstill. As the effects of crises multiply and intensify, more and more people are experiencing severe hunger, with the situation expected to worsen throughout the year. Large demographic groups such as women and youth are carrying the burden of these crises. This year's GHI report considers the ways in which current food systems are failing young people.

In many parts of the world, young people face a set of stark realities. They are more likely than adults to be affected by extreme poverty and food insecurity, with young women particularly affected, despite the importance of their health and nutrition status for future generations. Young people are three times more likely to be unemployed. They often lack access to the resources, land, skills, and opportunities that would enable them to productively engage in food systems. These barriers—as well as the challenges of climate change, land degradation, exposure to risks, difficult or precarious working conditions, and low social recognition—have turned many young people away from agricultural and rural livelihoods.

Although youth are underrepresented in policy- and decision- making related to food systems, they have a legitimate interest in shaping their future, and their voices must be heard. Youth are equal holders of the right to food, and good nutrition is essential for personal growth and development during this critical life stage. Furthermore, young people constitute an important and growing demographic cohort, particularly in food-insecure countries. Forty- two percent of the world's people are under 25 years of age, and the global population of adolescents and young adults, at 1.2 billion, is the largest in history.

2022 GHI: Food Systems Transformation and Local Governance

Facing the third global food price crisis in 15 years, it is more obvious than ever that our current food systems are inadequate to end poverty and hunger. The GHI emphasizes that the international community urgently needs to respond to the escalating humanitarian crises - while not losing sight of the need for long-term transformation of food systems.

The GHI 2022 focuses on the way communities, local governments, and civil actors engage with each other to make decisions and allocate resources is key to improving the food situation for people, and especially for the most vulnerable ones. It emphasizes the power of communities on a local level to shape how their food systems are governed.

In her essay, Danielle Resnick explains that a recent trend toward decentralizing government functions has given local governments greater autonomy and authority, including over key elements of food systems. And in fragile states local or informal sources of governance, such as traditional authorities, may have greater credibility with communities. Yet in several countries, civic spaces are subject to increasing repression, hindering citizens from claiming and realizing their right to adequate food. Moreover, citizens are often unaware of this right, even if it has been enshrined in national law. Thus, the GHI emphasizes that decision-makers must put inclusive local governance, accountability, and the realization of the right to food at the center of food system transformation.

At the same time, the essay by Danielle Resnick shows how local action can help citizens realize their right to food. It provides promising examples from a variety of settings where citizens are finding ways to amplify their voices in food system debates to improve food systems governance at the local level and hold decision makers accountable for addressing food and nutrition insecurity and hunger. Encouragingly, it points out that examples of empowerment are as visible in fragile contexts with high levels of societal fractionalization as they are in more stable settings with longer traditions of local democracy. These include a range of tools such as systems for tracking government budgets and expenditures, community scorecards for assessing the performance of local governments, and inclusive multistakeholder platforms that engage a range of local actors, including government officials, community groups, and private sector participants, in policy planning.

In summary, the GHI emphasizes that motivated and inclusive governance at all levels that ensure citizens' participation, action, and oversight is pivotal for meaningful food system transformation that ultimately benefits all people, especially the most vulnerable. All levels of government must include local voices and capacities and promote strong local decision-making structures, with the efforts tailored to the conditions and capacities on the ground.

2021 GHI: Hunger and Food Systems in Conflict Settings

In their essay, guest authors Dan Smith and Caroline Delgado describe how, despite the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, violent conflicts continued to be the main cause of global hunger in 2020. The number of active violent conflicts is increasing, and they are becoming more severe and protracted. They state that the reciprocal linkages between hunger and conflict are widely known. Violent conflict affects nearly all aspects of a food system, from production, harvesting, processing, and transport to commodity supply, financing, marketing, and consumption. Meanwhile, increased food insecurity can fuel violent conflict. Smith and Delgado argue that without a solution to food insecurity, it is difficult to build sustainable peace, and without peace, chances of ending world hunger are minimal.

If progress is to be made in both stemming conflict and fighting hunger, a food security lens must be integrated into peace building and a peace-building lens should be integrated into the effort to create resilient food systems. For this the guest authors propose four priorities: (1) adopt a flexible and agile approach; (2) work through partnerships; (3) pursue integrative ways of working; and (4) break down funding silos.

The 2021 GHI states that even in the midst of conflict and extreme vulnerability, it remains possible to disrupt the destructive links between conflict and hunger and build resilience. By working collaboratively, involved actors—from states and community groups to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and United Nations agencies—can build a foundation for food security and sustainable peace. Integrating a peace-building perspective into building resilient food systems and a food security perspective into peace building requires a thorough knowledge of the context and sensitivity to the realities of ongoing conflicts. Thus, the GHI emphasizes the importance of strengthening locally led interventions and taking into account local concerns and aspirations, while building partnerships that bring together different actors and their respective knowledge. Moreover, funding should be provided in a flexible and long-term manner and should be adaptable to contexts that are fluid, fragile, and conflict affected. Finally, the 2021 GHI calls for a more vigorous approach to addressing conflicts at the political level and prosecuting those who use hunger as a weapon of war.

2020 GHI: Linking Health and Sustainable Food Systems

The events of 2020 are laying bare many of the vulnerabilities of the world's food system in ways that are becoming impossible to ignore. However, by taking an integrated approach to health and food and nutrition security, it may yet be possible to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030. A One Health approach, which is based on a recognition of the interconnections between humans, animals, plants, and their shared environment, as well as the role of fair-trade relations, would address the various crises we face holistically and help avert future health crises, restore a healthy planet, and end hunger.

A One Health lens brings into focus a number of weaknesses including the fragility of globalized food systems; underinvestment in local farmers, farmer associations, and smallholder-oriented value chains; increasing rates of diet-related noncommunicable disease; emergency responses that disrupt local food systems; the heavy environmental cost of food systems; inadequate social protection for much of the world's population; unfair global food governance, including unjust trade and aid policies; and lack of secure land tenure, which results in food insecurity for rural communities, indigenous people, women, and marginalized groups.

To ensure the right to adequate and nutritious food for all and achieve Zero Hunger by 2030, we must approach health and food and nutrition security in a way that considers human, animal, and environmental health and fair-trade relations holistically. Multilateral institutions, governments, communities, and individuals must take a number of actions in the short and long term, including sustaining the production and supply of food; ensuring social protection measures; strengthening regional food supply chains; reviewing food, health, and economic systems through a One Health lens to chart a path to environmental recovery; and working toward a circular food economy that recycles nutrients and materials, regenerates natural systems, and eliminates waste and pollution.

2019 GHI: The Challenge of Hunger and Climate Change

The 2019 GHI report notes that climate change is making it ever more difficult to adequately and sustainably feed and nourish the human population. Climate change has direct and indirect negative impacts on food security and hunger through changes in food production and availability, access, quality, utilization, and stability of food systems. In addition, climate change can contribute to conflict, especially in vulnerable and food-insecure regions, creating a double vulnerability for communities, which are pushed beyond their ability to cope.

Furthermore, climate change raises four key inequities that play out at the interface of climate change and food security:

1. the degree of responsibility for causing climate change

2. the intergenerational impacts of climate change

3. the impacts of climate change on poorer people in the Global South

4. the ability and capacity to deal with climate change impacts

Current actions are inadequate for the scale of the threat that climate change poses to food security. Transformation—a fundamental change in the attributes of human and natural systems—is now recognized as central to climate-resilient development pathways that can achieve zero hunger. Individual and collective values and behaviors must push toward sustainability and a fairer balance of political, cultural, and institutional power in society.

2018 GHI: Forced Migration and Hunger

The 2018 Global Hunger Index (GHI) report—the 13th in the annual series—presents a multidimensional measure of national, regional, and global hunger by assigning a numerical score based on several aspects of hunger. It then ranks countries by GHI score and compares current scores with past results. The 2018 report shows that in many countries and in terms of the global average, hunger and undernutrition have declined since 2000; in some parts of the world, however, hunger and undernutrition persist or have even worsened. Since 2010, 16 countries have seen no change or an increase in their GHI levels.

The essay in the 2018 GHI report examines forced migration and hunger—two closely intertwined challenges that affect some of the poorest and most conflict-ridden regions of the world. Globally, there are an estimated 68.5 million displaced people, including 40.0 million internally displaced people, 25.4 million refugees, and 3.1 million asylum seekers. For these people, hunger may be both a cause and a consequence of forced migration.

Support for food-insecure displaced people needs to be improved in four key areas:

• recognizing and addressing hunger and displacement as political problems;

• adopting more holistic approaches to protracted displacement settings involving development support;

• providing support to food-insecure displaced people in their regions of origin; and

• recognizing that the resilience of displaced people is never entirely absent and should be the basis for providing support.

The 2018 Global Hunger Index report presents recommendations for providing a more effective and holistic response to forced migration and hunger. These include focusing on those countries and groups of people who need the most support, providing long-term solutions for displaced people, and engaging in greater responsibility sharing at an international level.

2017 GHI: The Inequalities of Hunger

The 2017 highlights the uneven nature of progress made in reducing hunger worldwide and the ways in which inequalities of power lead to unequal nourishment.

Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals' aim of "leaving no one behind" demands approaches to hunger and malnutrition that are both more sensitive to their uneven distribution and more attuned to the power inequalities that intensify the effects of poverty and marginalization on malnutrition. The report emphasizes the importance of using power analysis to name all forms of power that keep people hungry and malnourished; the significance of designing interventions strategically focused on where power is exerted; the need to empower the hungry and malnourished to challenge and resist loss of control over the food they eat.

2016 GHI: Getting to Zero Hunger

The 2016 Global Hunger Index (GHI) presents a multidimensional measure of national, regional, and global hunger, focusing on how the world can get to Zero Hunger by 2030.

The developing world has made substantial progress in reducing hunger since 2000. The 2016 GHI shows that the level of hunger in developing countries as a group has fallen by 29 percent. Yet this progress has been uneven, and great disparities in hunger continue to exist at the regional, national, and subnational levels.

The 2016 GHI emphasizes that the regions, countries, and populations most vulnerable to hunger and undernutrition have to be identified, so improvement can be targeted there, if the world community wants to seriously Sustainable Development Goal 2 on ending hunger and achieving food security.

2015 GHI: Armed Conflict and Chronic Hunger

The chapter on hunger and conflict shows that the time of great famines with more than 1 million people dead is over. There is, however, a clear connection between armed conflict and severe hunger. Most of the countries scoring worst in the 2015 GHI are experiencing or have recently experienced armed conflict. Still, severe hunger also exists without conflict present, as the cases of several countries in South Asia and Africa show.

Armed conflict has increased since 2005, and unless it can be reduced, there is little hope for eliminating hunger.

2014 GHI: Hidden Hunger

Hidden hunger concerns over 200 million people worldwide. This micronutrient deficiency develops when humans do not take in enough micronutrients such as zinc, folate, iron and vitamins, or when their bodies cannot absorb them. Reasons include an unbalanced diet, a higher need for micronutrients (e.g. during pregnancy or while breast feeding) but also health issues related to sickness, infections or parasites.

The consequences for individuals can be devastating: these often include mental impairment, bad health, low productivity and death caused by sickness. In particular, children are affected if they do not absorb enough micronutrients in the first 1000 days of their lives (beginning with conception).

Micronutrient deficiencies are responsible for an estimated 1.1 million of the yearly 3.1 million death caused by undernutrition in children. Despite the magnitude of the problem, it is still not easy to get precise data on the spread of hidden hunger. Macronutrient and micronutrient deficiencies cause a loss in global productivity of 1.4 to 2.1 billion US Dollars per year.

Different measures exist to prevent hidden hunger. It is essential to ensure that humans maintain a diverse diet. The quality of produce is as important as the caloric input. This can be achieved by promoting the production of a wide variety of nutrient-rich plants and the creation of house gardens.

Other possible solutions are the industrial enrichment of food or biofortification of feedplants (e.g. vitamin A rich sweet potatoes).

In the case of acute nutrient deficiency and in specific life phases, food supplements can be used. In particular, the addition of vitamin A leads to a better child survival rate.

Generally, the situation concerning hidden hunger can only be improved when many measures intermesh. In addition to the direct measures described above, this includes the education and empowerment of women, the creation of better sanitation and adequate hygiene, and access to clean drinking water and health services.

2013 GHI: Resilience to Build Food and Nutrition Security

Many of the countries in which the hunger situation is "alarming" or "extremely alarming" are particularly prone to crises: In the African Sahel people experience yearly droughts. On top of that, they have to deal with violent conflict and natural calamities. At the same time, the global context becomes more and more volatile (financial and economic crises, food price crises).

The inability to cope with these crises leads to the destruction of many development successes that had been achieved over the years. In addition, people have even less resources to withstand the next shock or crises. 2.6 billion people in the world live on less than US$2 per day. For them, a sickness in the family, crop failure after a drought, or the interruption of remittances from relatives who live abroad can set in motion a downward spiral from which they cannot free themselves on their own.

It is therefore not enough to support people in emergencies and, once the crisis is over, to start longer-term development efforts. Instead, emergency and development assistance has to be conceptualized with the goal of increasing resilience of poor people against these shocks.

The Global Hunger Index differentiates three coping strategies. The lower the intensity of the crises, the less resources have to be used to cope with the consequences:

• Absorption: Skills or resources are used to reduce the impact of a crisis without changing a household's lifestyle (e.g., selling some livestock).
• Adaptation: Once the capacity to absorb is exhausted, steps are taken to adapt the household's lifestyle to the situation without making drastic changes (e.g., using drought-resistant seeds).
• Transformation: If adaptation strategies do not suffice to deal with the negative impact of the crisis, fundamental, longer-lasting changes to life and behavior have to be made (e.g., nomadic tribes become sedentary farmers because they cannot keep their herds).

Based on this analysis, the authors present several policy recommendations:

• Overcoming the institutional, financial, and conceptual boundaries between humanitarian aid and development assistance.
• Elimination of policies that undermine people's resilience. Using the Right to Food as a basis for the development of new policies.
• Implementation of multi-year, flexible programs, which are financed in a way that enables multisectoral approaches to overcome chronic food crises.
• Communicating that improving resilience is cost-effective and improves food and nutrition security, especially in fragile contexts.
• Scientific monitoring and evaluation of measures and programs with the goal to increase resilience.
• Active involvement of the local population in the planning and implementation of resilience-increasing programs.
• Improvement of food, especially of mothers and children, through nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions to prevent short-term crises from leading to nutrition-related problems late in life or across generations.

2012 GHI: Pressures on Land, Water, and Energy Resources

Increasingly, hunger is related to how we use land, water, and energy. The growing scarcity of these resources puts more and more pressure on food security. Several factors contribute to an increasing shortage of natural resources:

1. Demographic change: The world population is expected to be over 9 billion by 2050. Additionally, more and more people live in cities. Urban populations feed themselves differently than inhabitants of rural areas; they tend to consume less staple foods and more meat and dairy products.
2. Higher income and non-sustainable use of resources: As the global economy grows, wealthy people consume more food and goods, which have to be produced with a lot of water and energy. They can afford not to be efficient and wasteful in their use of resources.
3. Bad policies and weak institutions: When policies, for example energy policy, are not tested for the consequences they have on the availability of land and water it can lead to failures. An example are the biofuel policies of industrialized countries: As corn and sugar are increasingly used for the production of fuels, there is less land and water for the production of food.

Signs for an increasing scarcity of energy, land and water resources are for example: growing prices for food and energy, a massive increase of large-scale investment in arable land (so-called land grabbing), increasing degradation of arable land because of too intensive land use (for example, increasing desertification), increasing number of people, who live in regions with lowering ground water levels, and the loss of arable land as a consequence of climate change.

The analysis of the global conditions lead the authors of the GHI 2012 to recommend several policy actions:

• Securing land and water rights
• Gradual lowering of subsidies
• Creation of a positive macroeconomic framework
• Investment in agriculture technology development to promote a more efficient use of land, water and energy
• Support for approaches, that lead to a more efficient use of land, water and energy along the whole value chain
• Preventing and overuse of natural resources through monitoring strategies for water, land and energy, and agricultural systems
• Improvement of the access to education for women and the strengthening of their reproductive rights to address demographic change
• Increase incomes, reduce social and economic inequality and promotion of sustainable lifestyles
• Climate change mitigation and adaptation through a reorientation of agriculture

2011 GHI: Rising and Volatile Food Prices

The report cites 3 factors as the main reasons for high volatility, or price changes, and price spikes of food:

• Use of the so-called biofuels, promoted by high oil prices, subsidies in the United States (over one third of the corn harvest of 2009 and 2010 respectively) and quota for biofuel in gasoline in the European Union, India and others.
• Extreme weather events as a result of Climate Change
• Future trading of agricultural commodities, for instance investments in fonds, which are speculating on price changes of agricultural products (2003: 13 Bn US Dollar, 2008: 260 Bn US Dollar), as well as increasing trade volume of these goods.

Volatility and prices increases are worsened according to the report by the concentration of staple foods in a few countries and export restrictions of these goods, the historical low of worldwide cereal reserves and the lack of timely information on food products, reserves and price developments. Especially this lack of information can lead to overreactions in the markets. Moreover, seasonal limitations on production possibilities, limited land for agricultural production, limited access to fertilizers and water, as well as the increasing demand resulting from population growth, puts pressure on food prices.

According to the Global Hunger Index 2011 price trends show especially harsh consequences for poor and under-nourished people, because they are not capable to react to price spikes and price changes. Reactions, following these developments, can include: reduced calorie intake, no longer sending children to school, riskier income generation such as prostitution, criminality, or searching landfills, and sending away household members, who cannot be fed anymore. In addition, the report sees an all-time high in the instability and unpredictability of food prices, which after decades of slight decrease, increasingly show price spikes (strong and short-term increase).

At a national level, especially food importing countries (those with a negative food trade balance), are affected by the changing prices.

2010 GHI: Early Childhood Undernutrition

Undernutrition among children has reached terrible levels. About 195 million children under the age of five in the developing world—about one in three children—are too small and thus underdeveloped. Nearly one in four children under age five—129 million—is underweight, and one in 10 is severely underweight. The problem of child undernutrition is concentrated in a few countries and regions, with more than 90 percent of stunted children living in Africa and Asia. 42% of the world's undernourished children live in India alone.

The evidence presented in the report shows that the window of opportunity for improving nutrition spans is the 1,000 days between conception and a child's second birthday (that is the period from -9 to +24 months). Children who are do not receive adequate nutrition during this period have increased risks to experiencing lifelong damage, including poor physical and cognitive development, poor health, and even early death. The consequences of malnutrition that occurred after 24 months of a child's life are by contrast largely reversible.

See also

• List of countries by percentage of population living in poverty
• Food portal
• World portal

Literature

• 2023 – The Power of Youth in Shaping Food Systems
• 2022 – Food Systems Transformation and Local Governance
• 2021 – Hunger and Food Systems in Conflict Settings
• 2020 – One Decade to Zero Hunger - Linking Health and Sustainable Food Systems
• 2019 – The Challenge of Hunger and Climate Change
• 2018 – Forced Migration and Hunger
• 2017 – The Inequalities of Hunger
• 2016 – Getting to Zero Hunger
• 2015 – Armed Conflict and the Challenge of Hunger
• 2014 – The Challenge of Hidden Hunger
• 2013 – The Challenge of Hunger: Building Resilience to achieve Food and Nutrition Security
• 2012 – The Challenge of Hunger: Ensuring Sustainable Food Security Under Land, Water, and Energy Stresses
• 2011 – The Challenge of Hunger: Taming Price Spikes and Excessive Food Price Volatility
• 2010 – The Challenge of Hunger: Focus on the Crisis of Child Undernutrition
• 2009 – The Challenge of Hunger: Focus on Financial Crisis and Gender Inequality
• 2008 – The Challenge of Hunger 2008
• 2007 – The Challenge of Hunger 2007
• 2006 – The Challenge of Hunger 2006