You just touched on a crucial aspect, which is nutrition. What does the SOFI report tell us about the outlook for nutrition targets this year?
The good news is that stunting, wasting, and exclusive breastfeeding rates have improved, showing better indicators than in previous years.
However, despite this improvement, progress is not occurring at the necessary pace. For example, when examining stunting, we know that half of the countries worldwide are not on track to achieve the established targets. Two-thirds are off track on the wasting indicator, and 40% are off track on exclusive breastfeeding.
So clearly, we must not only continue existing policies but intensify them to achieve our established targets and goals.
One indicator performing particularly poorly is overweight and obesity. In the case of overweight, 60% of countries are off track for achieving targets among children under five years of age.
This indicator is worsening, particularly in regions where hunger is improving. For example, in South America, we see a significant increase in overweight cases. Therefore, we need to continue working on this issue, focusing not only on overweight but also on obesity, which has shown a steady increase over the past decade, rising from 12.1% (591 million people) in 2012 to around 15.8% (881 million people) in 2022.
So clearly, there is significant room for improvement in both areas. We need to intensify efforts to address stunting, wasting, and exclusive breastfeeding while also substantially improving the reduction of overweight and obesity. This is precisely why the indicator of access to healthy diets is so crucial.
Can you explain how all this data is processed to produce the SOFI report? Are there any limitations or biases we should consider when interpreting this data?
We need to be meticulous when working with the numbers in SOFI. As I mentioned earlier, we completely reconstruct the entire series every year. The reason is simple: we receive more data from countries each year, including updated data that might even necessitate revising previous years’ figures when new observations become available.
Therefore, we cannot compare the 2024 figures with the 2023 figures or any other year’s data. It’s essential to refer to the complete time series published in the SOFI report.
Secondly, we must exercise caution with the definitions we employ. In the SOFI report, we measure chronic undernourishment, which we refer to as hunger. We do not measure acute food insecurity, which is a short-term lack of access to adequate food and is assessed in emergency situations. Chronic undernourishment is more of a medium- to long-term issue.
Therefore, precise definitions are crucial to avoid confusion, as people sometimes mistakenly compare acute food insecurity with hunger. These are distinct concepts.
Thirdly, we must be mindful that we also calculate the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), which measures moderate or severe food insecurity. This scale captures a broader dimension, encompassing something similar to hunger on the severe side and both undernutrition and overnutrition (including overweight and obesity) on the moderate side.
This number is derived from a global survey we conduct, as well as information from countries that collect data using the same instrument and methodology as our FIES survey. Clear examples include Brazil, Mexico and the United States, which already collect this data. We continuously work to increase the number of countries that collect their own data, focusing on building their capacity to do so.
Now, this indicator captures a lack of access to adequate food over time, and that’s what we’re trying to convey. It’s crucial to examine this series carefully every year, as we continue to refine and improve upon it.
Extensive effort is invested in working with countries and their official data, which serve as input for FAO’s standardized methodology, approved by the Statistical Commission. These are official SDG indicators with a methodology endorsed by all countries. FAO conducts the analysis based on the inputs provided by countries for both hunger and nutrition indicators. For the FIES, as mentioned, we collect our own data.
Interestingly, when we examine the FIES data alongside the hunger data, there is consistency. This consistency is also evident when comparing it with the evolution of poverty. Therefore, I believe the numbers we are providing offer a reliable and consistent estimation of the situation.
We note that many countries would like to have annual figures tracking their progress, but it’s important to understand that there is uncertainty between years. To address this, we use three-year averages when reporting hunger numbers. By using a rolling average of three years, we effectively smooth out potential variability in the data across different countries. Thus, the global number already incorporates these averages, helping us minimize variance.
Finally, as you’ve seen, we no longer report a single point estimate for hunger numbers. Instead, we present a range. This year, we estimate between 713 million and 753 million people are experiencing hunger, indicating the range within which we are confident the actual number falls. This shift is due to the evolving nature of the world and the drivers of food insecurity, leading to increased variability and uncertainty. We feel more comfortable reporting a range rather than an absolute number to reflect this.
How far are we from achieving the 2030 goal of Zero Hunger? It seems like we are off track. How can we catch up?
We are off track on all indicators. That’s clear. If we project the numbers of today, we will have up to 582 million people chronically undernourished or hungry by 2030. This is half a billion more than the target, which is zero hunger.
We need to accelerate the process and change if we want to get as close as possible to our target, which was very ambitious from the beginning. We only have six years left. Now, if I observe all the different regions and I see what has happened in South America, I see that this is possible.
There has been significant improvement in South America over the last three years, returning it to pre-COVID-19 conditions. Sadly, this has not happened in Africa, where half of the projected 582 million hungry people would be located by 2030. Therefore, we need to act and accelerate progress, learning from South America and all regions, to achieve our goal.
The second part of this year’s SOFI report focuses on financing. To achieve our goal, we need to change how we finance hunger reduction efforts worldwide. That’s why we need to find ways to accelerate financing.
But we need several things to happen. First, we need to coordinate better. Donors and different agencies provide funding with different objectives in mind, and that needs improvement. We need to increase coordination as well as targeting.
Second, we need to be more risk-takers. We are too risk-averse in the way we allocate resources. Sometimes it is necessary to take some risk. For example, to sacrifice a little bit of growth to ensure lower poverty and, therefore, less hunger in the world.
And third, we need to increase the different ways we obtain financing. One way is to attract private sector financing, but to do that, because most countries with the biggest hunger problems are high-risk countries, we need to use blended finance. This simply means creating a layer that minimizes the risk for private companies to invest in these countries.
But we also need to innovate even in blended finance. We need to reduce the risk through information. That’s the role of the FAO, to bring better information to the world about what is happening and where the problems are, so that companies and countries can better target their efforts.
We also need to bring new instruments. One of our efforts is to try to attract climate financing to agrifood systems. That will be central because today, 3% to 4% of climate financing goes to agrifood systems. Yet, the agrifood system significantly impacts the environment (with emissions) and, simultaneously, is majorly impacted by climate change.
Thus, our work on the Roadmap to Achieve SDG2 without Breaching the 1.5°C Threshold.
We are finding ways to show how we can gain efficiency through a just transition in agrifood systems, thereby reducing emissions and improving biodiversity while achieving SDG2, the zero-hunger goal.
Now, the new G20 initiative that Brazil is launching led by President Lula, the Alliance against Poverty and Hunger, is central in this respect because it will help us bring all these pillars together.
What are these pillars?
We have a pillar of knowledge, a pillar where we are trying to learn the best practices from different countries in the world. That will give us the mechanism and institutionality we need to recommend to countries what to do.
Then we have the pillar of financing, which, again, is central because it will bring these new innovations in financing but also try to create coordination among different donors to countries. And that’s why the multilateral banks and the countries’ investments—the major countries, the G7, and the G20 countries—are central because if we are able to have a platform of coordination that links what we know how to do and how we can finance it that will be great.
Third, we have the pillar of country impact, working at the country level. This has to be bottom-up. We have to work with the countries. So, the Alliance that is coming out of the G20 of Brazil will be central, and that’s why we have made the decision this year, in difference to previous years, to launch SOFI there because we believe this is a starting point for this revolution that we need to accelerate the transformation of agrifood systems.
Clearly, for us, Latin America and South America, especially, will achieve that goal in 2030 if we continue as we are. In the current projections, we will only have around 20 million people in hunger. That can be resolved.
But what we need is that what happens in this region happens in the other regions, and that’s what we need to do with the agrifood systems transformation, and that’s why it’s so important to push the Alliance together with the data that we bring in the SOFI report, so that in the following years we see improvements to achieve the goal that we are trying to achieve.
Source link : https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/world-must-look-to-south-america-success-in-reducing-hunger-fao-chief-economist/en
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Publish date : 2024-07-24 08:28:50
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