Hunger

In politics, humanitarian aid, and the social sciences, hunger is defined as a condition in which an individual does not have the physical or financial capability to consume sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs for a sustained period. In the field of hunger relief, the term hunger is used in a sense that surpasses the typical desire for food that all humans experience, also referred to as an appetite. The most severe type of hunger is when malnutrition is widespread, and when people have started dying of starvation through lack of access to sufficient, nutritious food, this results in a declaration of famine.

Throughout history, portions of the world's population have often suffered sustained periods of hunger. In many cases, hunger resulted from food supply disruptions caused by war, plagues, or adverse weather. In the decades following World War II, technological progress and enhanced political cooperation suggested it might be possible to substantially reduce the number of people suffering from hunger. While progress was uneven, by 2015, the threat of extreme hunger had receded for a large portion of the world's population. According to the FAO's 2023 The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, this positive trend had reversed from about 2017, when a gradual rise in number of people suffering from chronic hunger became discernible. In 2020 and 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an increase in the number of people suffering from undernourishment. A recovery occurred in 2022 along with the economic rebound, though the impact on global food markets caused by the invasion of Ukraine meant the reduction in world hunger was limited. While most of the world's people continue to live in Asia, much of the increase in hunger since 2017 occurred in Africa and South America. FAO has identified three reasons for the recent increase in hunger: climate, conflict, and economic slowdowns. Extreme weather is a primary driver of the increase in hunger, rising rates are especially severe in countries where agricultural systems were most sensitive to extreme weather variations. There is also a strong correlation between increases in hunger and countries that had suffered an economic slowdown. FAO found that if nothing was done to counter the adverse trends of the past six years, the number of people suffering from chronic hunger could rise by over 150 million by 2030. COVID-19 pandemic caused a sharp jump in the number of people experiencing hunger, which levelled off in 2022. In 2024, hunger had increased globally for 6 years in a row with 8.2% of the global population experienced hunger in 2023, down from 8.5% in 2022 and 8.7% in 2021. An estimated 7.8% of the global population faced hunger in 2025. The progress is driven by notable improvement in South-eastern Asia, Southern Asia and South America in contrast to the continuing rise in hunger in most subregions of Africa and in Western Asia. Many thousands of organizations are engaged in the field of hunger relief, operating at local, national, regional, or international levels. Some of these organizations are dedicated to hunger relief, while others may work in several different fields. The organizations range from multilateral institutions to national governments, to small local initiatives such as independent soup kitchens. Many participate in umbrella networks that connect thousands of different hunger relief organizations. At the global level, much of the world's hunger relief efforts are coordinated by the UN and geared towards achieving SDG 2 of Zero Hunger by 2030.

Definition and related terms

There is one globally recognized approach for defining and measuring hunger generally used by those studying or working to relieve hunger as a social problem. This is the United Nation's FAO measurement, which is typically referred to as chronic undernourishment (or in older publications, as 'food deprivation,' 'chronic hunger,' or just plain 'hunger.') For the FAO:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.