Re-Examining Financing for Food Security: 2024 SOFI Report Released

As the world edges closer to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal deadline, progress on achieving Zero Hunger has stalled, according to the FAO’s 2024 flagship report, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World.

As many as 757 million people may have experienced hunger in 2023, while 2.33 billion experienced moderate or severe food insecurity. In 2022, as many as 2.8 billion were not able to afford a nutritious diet. The situation is particularly dire in low-income countries, especially for rural populations, women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples.

Africa continues to see the largest percentage of the world’s hungry population, with 20.4 percent of the regional population experiencing hunger in 2023 (compared to 8.1 percent in Asia, 6.2 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 7.3 percent in Oceania). In terms of total numbers, Asia remains home to the largest number of hungry people: 384.5 million (compared to 298.4 million in Africa, 41 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 3.3 million in Oceania). While Latin America and the Caribbean has made substantial progress in reducing both hunger and moderate and severe food insecurity in over the past three years, progress in other regions of the world has stalled or even reversed.  

If these trends continue, the report emphasizes, as many as 582 million people around the world will remain hungry and malnourished by 2030.

A major factor limiting progress on the world’s food security and nutrition goals is a lack of inclusive financing. In recent years, significant attention has been paid to the policies and investments needed to drive sustainable agrifood system transformation and address challenges such as climate change, conflict, income and food security inequality, and the rising cost of healthy foods. However, the report highlights, the countries most impacted by these challenges and with the highest levels of food and nutrition insecurity tend to be the countries with the least access to and implementation of inclusive financing to support needed policy changes.

In addition, our understanding of what precisely is meant by “financing for food security” remains murky. Existing definitions tend to be sector- and purpose-specific, such as the amount of financing going toward the agricultural sector or to interventions targeting child stunting, for instance. However, food and nutrition security are multi-dimensional; they do not only impact or rely on a single sector or target outcome. The lack of a holistic, commonly agreed upon understanding of what constitutes financing for food security makes it difficult to identify where funding is currently going, where it is and is not being used effectively, and where financing needs to be scaled up.

A more holistic, multi-sectoral definition of financing for food security and nutrition would include both domestic and foreign public and private financing dedicated to eliminating hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition in all their forms, the report states. Such a definition would encompass all elements of food security and nutrition, including availability, access, utilization, and stability of healthy food sources and healthy diets, as well as the educational, health, and social policies needed to support those elements. It would also include strengthening sustainable, inclusive, and resilient agrifood systems.

Once we have a more comprehensive definition of financing for food security, we can better assess the level of funding needed to achieve the world’s food security goals – a number the report warns will likely be in the trillions.

A wide range of policies and interventions will be needed to achieve such a daunting figure, the report states, and those policies will need to maintain a focus on innovation, inclusion, and collaboration. For countries with limited financing access, this could include receiving grants or concessional loans. Other countries with more stable access to financing could increase their domestic taxes and link those revenues to key food and nutrition security outcomes. Food security goals can also be linked to other environmental and social goals to share the financing burden across sectors and both public and private actors.

This emphasis on coordination also needs to extend to data and information sharing, the report emphasizes. Greater transparency is needed across sectors, countries, and regions when setting local and national policy goals to ensure food security efforts do not remain siloed and ineffective.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030 will take significant political and financial commitment. Without such commitment, the report cautions, the world will fail in its sustainable development commitments and continue to be plagued by hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition.

Sara Gustafson is a freelance communications consultant.