In 2022, it was reported in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World that more than a third of the global population, equivalent to 2.826 billion people, could not afford a healthy diet. Despite rising food prices, the economic recovery and positive income effects helped offset the average cost of a healthy diet. This resulted in a slight decrease in the percentage of people unable to afford a healthy diet compared to 2019.
However, the recovery was uneven across regions. While upper-middle- and high-income countries saw a drop in the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet below pre-pandemic levels, low-income countries experienced the highest levels since 2017. This disparity highlights the structural problems within our agrifood systems and calls for targeted attention from both national and international entities.
The report also revealed significant variations in the affordability of healthy diets across regions. In Africa, 64.8% of the population could not afford a healthy diet, while the figures for Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Oceania, and Northern America and Europe were 35.1%, 27.7%, 20.1%, and 4.8% respectively.
Moreover, the number of people unable to afford healthy diets increased in low-income and lower-middle-income countries from 2019 to 2022. This outcome reflects the uneven distribution of post-pandemic economic recoveries and the ability of more advanced economies to withstand supply chain shocks and inflationary pressure on food commodity prices.
To determine the affordability of healthy diets, the report considered factors such as diversity, adequacy, moderation, and balance. It was found that prices, measured using purchasing power parity (PPP), increased globally by 6% in 2020 and 11% in 2021. However, in economies with robust income growth and low food expenditure as a share of household budgets, the impact of these price increases was diluted.
This uneven progress in economic access to healthy diets raises concerns about achieving the goal of Zero Hunger by 2030. To address this challenge, there is a need to accelerate the transformation of our agrifood systems, strengthen their resilience, and tackle inequalities to ensure affordable and available healthy diets for all.
In 2022, the global average cost of a healthy diet, measured in PPP dollars, reached 3.96. Subregional variations were observed, with Eastern Asia having the highest average cost of 5.34 PPP dollars and Northern America having the lowest at 2.96 PPP dollars. The average prices for Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Oceania, and Northern America and Europe were 3.74, 4.20, 4.56, 3.46, and 3.75 PPP dollars respectively.
In conclusion, the report emphasizes the urgency of accelerating the transformation of agrifood systems to ensure the affordability and accessibility of healthy diets for everyone. It also calls for concerted efforts to address the inequalities that hinder progress towards achieving Zero Hunger.
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