The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2, target 1 aims to end hunger and ensure access by all people to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round by 2030. According to FAO’s latest report on the state of food security and nutrition in the world, the number of people who suffer from hunger began to slowly increase in 2015, despite the steady decline in decades before.

Like how other major pandemics (eg: Ebola) have had negative impacts on food security, COVID-19 is disrupting global food supply chains as revealed by a UN Policy Brief (June, 2020). This may be attributed to implemented measures and policies to quell the spread of COVID-19, such as border restrictions and lockdown, and these are posing considerable risks on food supply challenges the world is currently facing.

An analysis of the full series of past data (from 1999 to 2015) on the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) from surveys available on  FAO’s website provides the current estimated food security trends by 2030. The  method for estimating these trends, if the last decade’s inclination continues, is available here.

(By hovering over a country from the map below, the current and projected prevalence of undernourishment will automatically appear in the window).

As the world fights the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), new FAO data shows that the world is not on track to achieve zero hunger by 2030. The findings from the study support the links between pandemics and the livelihoods, food and nutrition security, especially in developing countries. COVID-19 pandemic presents an enormous challenge to living standards estimates which could decline this year (4 percent drop in GNI per capita worldwide) for the first time since 1990, when measurements began. (COVID-19 and the SDGs).