The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has recently released worrying data highlighting that while the world has made progress in supplying enough calories to feed the global population, there is still a long way to go. to ensure that everyone, anywhere on the planet, has access to sustainable food.
The UN agency has recently carried out a comprehensive analysis of how many people can access a healthy diet that offers a variety of nutrient-dense foods, in line with dietary recommendations. The research results show that about 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2020, which represents an increase of 112 million people compared to 2019.
Research results show that about 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2020
According to this FAO report, carried out in collaboration with researchers from Tufts University and the World Bank, Latin America and the Caribbean is the region where a healthy diet has the highest cost, reaching $3.89 per person per day in 2020, followed by Asia ($3.72), Africa ($3.46), North America and Europe ($3.19), and Oceania ($3.07).
In 2020, there were 112 million more people who could not afford a healthy diet compared to 2019. Of these people, 78 million lived in Asia, 25 million in Africa, 8 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, and North America, while a million lived in Europe. In addition, in twelve African countries, more than 90% of the population cannot regularly access healthy food.
The director of FAO’s Agri-Food Economics Division, David Laborde, said that ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms is more than simply providing enough food to survive. It is also important to ensure that the food eaten is nutritious. However, he notes that “a major obstacle to this is the high cost of nutritious food and the lack of accessibility to healthy diets for many people around the world.”
20,000 nutrition indicators covering more than 245 countries
According to FAO Director of Food and Nutrition, Lynnette Neufeld, tracking the cost and affordability of healthy diets is an important step in recognizing the need to nurture and not just feed the world. “The indicators provide a starting point for generating locally relevant evidence to guide policies and programs to make healthy diets affordable for all people, at all times.” The set of indicators is now available on the agency’s data hub, FAOSTAT, which is the world’s largest data platform for food and agriculture.
FAO has institutionalized the computation, monitoring and reporting of indicators at the global, regional and national levels on the cost and accessibility of a healthy diet (CoAHD). These indicators provide a reliable benchmark for monitoring global progress towards achieving affordable healthy food for all. The indicators are based on an integrated set of data, calculated from variables such as retail prices of locally available foods and food-based dietary guidelines, among others.
The CoAHD project is part of FAO’s broader commitment to generate evidence to advise countries on their food and nutrition policies. FAO encourages its members and all stakeholders to scale up the counting and reporting of these indicators to the subnational level, thus contributing to the search for more tailored policies and programs to have greater impact on the ground. The next report on the state of food security and nutrition in the world will be published in July 2023.
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