World Food Day: Malnutrition in Asia-Pacific leaves UN’s Zero Hunger goal in jeopardy

17 Oct 2022 --- The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region faces serious challenges reaching those facing malnutrition, a report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) revealed after the World Food Day (October 16) ceremony in Bangkok, Thailand.

The ceremony’s theme was “Leaving no one behind,” and the virtual event shed importance on engaging younger generations to elicit their ideas on how to innovate and improve nutrition.

“Leaving no one behind means working on many fronts at the same time. For FAO, that includes promoting decent rural employment and services, ensuring social protection, ending child labor, and supporting local food production for vulnerable populations in food crisis countries,” says Jong-Jin Kim, assistant director-general and regional representative for APAC at FAO.

“It also means fostering gender equality and supporting rural and Indigenous Peoples who are the custodians of much of the Earth’s biodiversity.” 

Thirty-five years to end hunger?
The FAO stresses that the APAC region is the biggest in the world and also home to most of the world’s hungry citizens. The world’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 – achieving zero hunger – has suffered a backslide to end hunger and malnutrition “in all its forms,” the organization warns.

“Global conflicts, a lingering pandemic, inflation, erratic swings in the price of energy, fertilizers and basic foods – these are just some of the major challenges facing countries and people in the APAC region as it marked World Food Day,” says the FAO.

A recent UN report stressed that the region is so far off-track from meeting the SDG 2030 deadline that it would need an additional 35 years to hit all 17 SDG targets.

In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated, global hunger rates spiked because of the economic downturn, causing unemployment and supply disruptions.

By 2021, more than 400 million people in the APAC region were malnourished. The UN recently said it might take 35 years to end hunger.By 2021, more than 400 million people in the APAC region were malnourished – mainly in the southern part. The FAO adds that 40% of all the inhabitants could not afford a healthy diet.

Dr. QU Dongyu, director-general at FAO, explains that the most vulnerable, including small-scale producers, need to be empowered through investment in global agri-food systems. 

Sparking a transformation
This investment would include improved access to training, incentives, science, data, technology and innovation, helping smallholders thrive at the center of this transformation.

“We need decent rural employment and services to end child labor while fostering gender equality and supporting rural and indigenous peoples who are the custodians of much of the earth’s biodiversity. At the same time, governments need to provide timely and well-targeted social protection programs that protect the most fragile,” says Dongyu.

Meanwhile, Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the princess of Thailand, addressed the ceremony with a video message stressing that transforming agri-food systems to be more resilient to shocks such as natural disasters and pandemics should be the main priority.

“This would require innovative and cost-effective measures to provide social protection to reduce vulnerabilities, particularly of women, indigenous peoples and socially marginalized smallholders,” she says.

“Leaving no one behind, regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, location, disability or migratory status, remains the central commitment of the 2030 Agenda.”

The World Food Program said in a statement before the ceremony that 10% of the world’s population (828 million people) go to bed hungry every night.

By Beatrice Wihlander