USAID General Publications The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World: Finiancing to End Hunger, Food Insecurity, and Malnutrition in all its Forms (2024)

The reverse in progress and the persistently high levels of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in recent years have put the world off track to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Targets 2.1 and 2.2 – to end hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition by 2030. Previous editions of this report have repeatedly highlighted the intensification of several major drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition, specifically conflict, climate variability and extremes, and economic slowdowns and downturns, combined with the well-established underlying factors that contribute to food insecurity and malnutrition, such as lack of access to and unaffordability of healthy diets, unhealthy food environments, and high and persistent inequality. Not only are these major drivers increasing in frequency and intensity, they are occurring concurrently more often, and in combination with the underlying factors, resulting in increasing numbers of hungry and food-insecure people. Depending on the major driver or combination of drivers affecting food security and nutrition in a country, addressing them will require a portfolio of policies across six transformative pathways, as outlined in detail in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021.

To attain the scale of actions needed, sufficient levels of and equal access to financing to address food security and nutrition challenges are essential. The theme of this year’s report focuses on the financing to meet SDG Targets 2.1 and 2.2 – financing to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms.