The population of hungry people is rising across the world, a UN report has shown, with more than a quarter of them in Africa.
Out of the 821 million people who faced shortage of food in 2017, 257 million were found in the continent.
A new report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World released on Tuesday showed that world hunger rose in 2017 for the third consecutive year, fuelled by conflict and climate change.
According to the report, hunger is worsening in South America and most regions of Africa as one in nine people went hungry in 2017..
The steady rise in number is fast jeopardising the global goal to end hunger and malnutrition by 2030, the UN warned.
According to the report co-authored by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and UN partner agencies (IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO), limited progress has been made in addressing the multiple forms of malnutrition, putting the health of hundreds of millions of people at risk.
The study noted that hunger has been on the rise over the past three years returning to levels from a decade ago.
“This reversal in progress sends a clear warning that more must be done and urgently if the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger is to be achieved by 2030, the agencies said.
Based on happening in the country, Nigeria contributes to this high figure.
Nigeria has the highest prevalence rate of stunted under-five children in sub-Saharan Africa, with about 17. 2 million children affected and also the highest population of people living in extreme poverty.
The Boko Haram insurgency in the North-east and flooding in parts of the country have also displaced many Nigerians, leaving them relying on donors for their daily meals.
“The alarming signs of increasing food insecurity and high levels of different forms of malnutrition are a clear warning that there is considerable work to be done to make sure we ‘leave no one behind’ on the road towards achieving the SDG goals on food security and improved nutrition,” the heads of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and WHO warned in their joint foreword to the report.
“If we are to achieve a world without hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030, it is imperative that we accelerate and scale up actions to strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of food systems and people’s livelihoods in response to climate variability and extremes,” the leaders said.
The report called for implementing and scaling up interventions aimed at guaranteeing access to nutritious foods and breaking the inter-generational cycle of malnutrition.
