Sustainable Development Goal for Food

The Sustainable Development Goal for food, approved by the UN in 2015 as the second of 17 Goals, aims to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture (by 2030).” The targets linked to this SDG reiterate the intention to “end” hunger, with a separate target to “end all forms of malnutrition.”

The future of food and agriculture – a simple animation charts the principal trends and challenges in eliminating global hunger by 2030
from UN Food and Agriculture Organization

These details are important because they address the shortcomings of the previous regime, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDG for hunger failed the concept of food security by seeking only to reduce by half the proportion of the world’s population experiencing hunger, to be assessed between 1990 and 2015. This Goal reneged on several decades of political promises to eliminate hunger.

Sadly, restoration of political ambition in 2015 has been followed by a period of disturbing annual increases in global hunger, now totalling 690 million, about 8.9% of the world’s population. In Africa, this percentage is over 19%, 250 million people.

Although this reversal of the trend of falling world hunger was unexpected, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) had already warned that the SDG target of eliminating hunger is daunting. Its own research, based on current national and international commitments to reducing hunger, suggests that a large number of key developing countries are off course, including India, Nigeria and Indonesia.

Any analysis of the resources necessary to overcome this sluggish performance is unlikely to renew optimism. A recent study backed by the German government found that international donors would have to double existing commitments to food security of $14bn per annum over the full period to 2030. And this conclusion assumed that beneficiary countries would increase their own contribution through domestic taxation.

The principal indicators for monitoring the food goal are the prevalence of undernourishment and the prevalence of malnutrition. The former measure is largely based on the “minimum dietary energy requirement” declared for each country by the FAO. Depending on age and gender profile, the figure is typically around 2,000 kilocalories per day for light activity.

A shortcoming of this indicator is the over-emphasis on quantity rather than quality of food. Any absence of vital protein and micro-nutrients such as iron and iodine impairs the ability to learn and reduces resistance to disease, especially in young children. Over one third of child mortality is attributed to malnutrition. Hence the significance of the target to end malnutrition in the SDG for food.

******

more Food Security briefings (updated March 2021)
Food Security Definition and Global Divide
Right to Food
Causes of Food Insecurity
Governance of Food Security
Solutions to Food Insecurity
Source material and useful links

Recent news and opinion about Food Security

Rice export bans are a food crisis risk for Asia

19/9/2023: Global rice prices have risen to a 12-year high since India, the world’s largest rice exporter, embarked on a policy of reducing exports. Across Asia, nations are attempting to control the cereal grain’s prices, sowing the seeds of a potential food crisis

Source: CNA

A plea for a UN summit on the global food crisis

25/8/2023: Launched by Hungry for Action, a coalition of civil society organizations is calling for an emergency meeting of world leaders to address the global food crisis during the UN General Assembly next month. The campaign argues that a combination of conflict, climate change, rising food prices and punishing debt burdens has led to 735 million people going hungry, 122 million more than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Inter Press Service

Does India’s rice market disruption threaten food security?

20/8/2023: The general election in India scheduled for the spring of 2024 has politicians’ eyes focused on stabilising staple food prices, a probable explanation of the rice export ban in July. It is uncertain if India, the current G20 chair, can provide leadership on calming an increasingly turbulent world food economy.

Source: East Asia Forum

We need a new recipe to combat hunger

7/8/2023: The UN has reported that 122 million more people are going hungry than in 2019, erasing years of progress. It’s time to admit that the industrial food system is starving people. Half the calories consumed around the world come from just three staple crops, shipped around the world by a handful of powerful trading firms. This is profitable, but it is not robust.

Source: Inter Press Service

Rice market in turmoil as India curtails exports

6/8/2023: Rice prices have soared to the highest in a decade as India limits exports and erratic weather wreaks havoc on Asian rice fields. This is likely to worsen food insecurity in many countries that rely on rice as a staple. Last year, India exported about 22 million tons of rice to 140 countries, comprising roughly 40% of the global cereal trade.

Source: DW

UN Security Council: Food insecurity tops agenda

3/8/2023: A draft communique presented by the US Secretary of State calls on the UN Security Council to "take action to end the use of food as a weapon of war." The collapse of the Black Sea grain deal poses a serious threat to the food security of many lower-income countries already grappling with hunger and economic crises.

Source: DW

How to mend the world’s broken food systems

24/7/2023: The 2021 UN Food Systems Summit launched a global drive to transform the way humanity grows, processes and transports food. Prior to the second summit, a senior official from the UN Environment Programme discusses mounting concerns about the planet’s long-term ability to feed a fast-growing human population.

Source: UN Environment Programme

How will the end of the Ukraine grain deal hurt Africa?

19/7/2023: Russia has quit a deal that allows the safe passage of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea. Could this move exacerbate the hunger crisis in parts of Africa, a major wheat importer?

Source: DW

SDG hunger goal slumps further behind 2030 target

12/7/2023: The UN flagship global food security report has found that in 2022 between 691 million and 783 million people were hungry, 122 million more than in 2019 before the pandemic. The world is being pushed further away from meeting the UN's near hopeless goal to eliminate hunger by 2030.

Source: Devex

One year of the Black Sea Initiative: key facts

10/7/2023: For almost a year, the UN-brokered Black Sea Initiative agreed by Russia, Türkiye, and Ukraine has allowed millions of tonnes of grain to leave Ukraine’s ports. The Initiative has helped reverse spiking global food prices, which reached record highs shortly before the agreement was signed.

Source: UN News

Previous123...1718Next