Nutrition

In the wake of a series of recent crises that drove up global hunger and food insecurity, the world remains far off track in meeting Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2)—ending hunger and malnutrition by 2030. Now, in a chaotic global environment of still more crises and complications, including cuts in official development assistance, what is the best course forward for governments and development organizations to address these urgent problems?

The world faced a stark inflection point in 2024, as the continued rise in the number of people facing crisis-to-catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity meets sharp reductions in funding for humanitarian assistance. The 2025 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), released today, reports that 295.3 million people across 53 countries/territories faced acute food insecurity in 2024. This represents a tripling of the number of people facing acute hunger since 2016 and a doubling since 2020 (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Climate change, malnutrition, and poor diets are interconnected. Without well-financed climate change adaptation plans and strategies global nutrition disparities could worsen.

The real price of food has risen dramatically in 21st century, with the FAO food price index peaking at an all-time high in March 2022 at 116% above its 2000 value (Figure 1). While food inflation has long been a cause of concern for nutrition agencies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), new evidence is shedding light on the potential impacts of rising food prices on child malnutrition in LMICs.

Figure 1

Scientists from the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, led by Vanya Slavchevska, undertook a rapid study to gather evidence on the initial impacts of COVID-19 on cassava smallholders in Cambodia and Vietnam. 
The research evaluates how smallholders coped with the economic consequences of COVID-19 in the short term, and whether livelihood diversification strategies mediated or exacerbated the impacts of the crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic context