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As acute food insecurity levels appear to be reaching new highs globally, also as a result of the socio-economic fallout of measures imposed to contain the spread of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), this joint FAO-WFP report aims to raise an early warning on 20 countries and situations - called hotspots - that, starting from already significant levels of acute food insecurity in early 2020, are facing the risk of a further rapid deterioration over the next months. Through a forward-looking analysis on potential evolutions of food insecurity drivers, this report aims to inform urgent action to safeguard the most vulnerable [...]

This series of e-learning courses assists professionals from all food and agriculture fields in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of nutrition-sensitive programmes, policies and investments. The courses use a scenario-based and experiential learning approach and cover all forms of malnutrition and a diversity of contexts.

More than 820 million people in the world were hungry in 2018 (FAO, 2019). In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there were 239 million undernourished people, with a prevalence of 22.8 percent as measured by the Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU), a Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) indicator. The target is to bring this prevalence to zero by 2030 (Ritchie et al., 2018). According to the latest Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), 9.2 percent of the world’s population (or more than 700 million people) were exposed to severe levels of food insecurity in 2018, with Africa having the highest level of 27 [...]

Key findings of this report show that much progress has been made towards the goal of ending hunger. Yet, many countries continue to face moderate to high degrees of undernourishment, especially where economies made least progress in transitioning towards high-productivity, modern agriculture and non-farm economic development and where policy stances have been weak in promoting agricultural development, reducing gender inequalities, and improving infrastructure and basic social services. The decline in undernourishment has come with a rise in the prevalence in overweight and obesity. The spread of this form of malnutrition has come with dietary shifts towards the consumption of more animal-sourced [...]

Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a serious threat to food security and nutrition. Economic turmoil caused by the pandemic threatens both economic and physical access to food (FAO, 2019). Declining incomes may make food, particularly nutritious food, less affordable for some, especially the poor. Disruptions to and possible breakdowns of marketing, logistics and trading systems could make food unavailable in some locations at some times. Hunger and malnutrition could rise.This brief will assess the current situation, provide some examples of how governments and other stakeholders are attempting to build more resilient food systems in response, and offer some broad policy recommendations. [...]

The Food Systems Dashboard combines data from multiple sources to give users a complete view of food systems. Users can compare components of food systems across countries and regions. They can also identify and prioritize ways to sustainably improve diets and nutrition in their food systems.Dashboards are useful tools that help users visualize and understand key information for complex systems. Users can track progress to see if policies or other interventions are working at a country or regional levelIn recent years, the public health and nutrition communities have used dashboards to track the progress of health goals and interventions, including [...]

The past few decades have seen dramatic improvements in the region in access to food, reduction in stunting rates, in premature death and disability caused by communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases. However, the gains in the fight against hunger and malnutrition have reversed in the wake of conflicts and violence that have spread in many parts of the region in the last decade. Today, nearly 55 million people in the Arab States, 13.2 percent of the population, are hungry and the situation is particularly worrying in countries affected by conflicts and violence: Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen. Displacements [...]

While the immediate impact of COVID19 in most parts of the world has been primarily urban, the economic impact of COVID19 spread quickly to rural areas. In most cases, the contagion will eventually follow. Most of the world’s poor and food insecure live in rural areas, and although physical distance, relative isolation, lower population density and their own production of food play in favour for rural areas, they are particularly vulnerable to suffering severe impact from the pandemic and the ensuing economic contraction. Rural areas, particularly in the developing world, are much less prepared to deal with the direct and [...]

Many communities and vulnerable individuals rely on foodbanks and other food recovery and redistribution charities to ensure they have access to enough food to build resilience in their communities, reduce food insecurity and contribute to healthier diets. Quite often foodbanks are able to distribute processed foods with limited access to highly perishable fresh foods, resulting in nutrient deficiencies of beneficiaries who are dependent on these charitable organizations for their food needs. Throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is recommended that food banks, seek to source and offer, as far as possible, fresh fruits and vegetables and limit the quantities of calorie dense [...]