2024 FAO Report: 733 Million People Face Hunger — Here’s How You Can Help

on July 30, 2024

About 733 million people around the world are facing hunger. This number comes from the 2024 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report recently published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The FAO’s annual report provides the latest data on hunger and food insecurity, the world’s progress toward United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger and what must still be done to achieve that goal. As an organization committed to ending world hunger, the report’s findings shape how we work — and how we engage Hunger Champions like you in our efforts. In this blog, we’ll share the state of global hunger, how Rise Against Hunger is addressing this issue and what you can do to help end hunger and support children and families around the world.

The Current State of Global Food Insecurity and Hunger

In addition to 733 million people facing hunger, 2.33 billion people — nearly 29% of the global population — are food insecure without regular access to the nutritious food needed to live a healthy life. The report underscores these statistics with a stark detail: hunger and food insecurity rose sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic and have not bounced back to prior levels. Hunger and food insecurity have remained relatively unchanged for three years.

Source: The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024, FIGURE 4: FOOD INSECURITY LEVELS REMAINED VIRTUALLY UNCHANGED GLOBALLY FROM 2022 TO 2023, WITH LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN BEING THE ONLY REGION SHOWING NOTABLE REDUCTION

The report highlights several improvements, though, that provide hope and a reminder that zero hunger can become a reality. While global hunger has remained relatively unchanged, progress has been made toward reducing hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean and some regions of Asia. Additionally, global stunting and wasting has declined, which can positively impact future generations. The report explains, “In many countries, fewer children are affected by stunting and wasting, increasing their chances of achieving their full potential for growth and development.”There are also positive trends being seen in reducing the gender gap in food insecurity. While women still experience food insecurity at higher rates than men, the gap has narrowed globally for two consecutive years, with the percentage difference decreasing from 3.6% in 2021 to 1.3% in 2023.But this progress does not minimize the severity of food insecurity. According to the report, the world is not on track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger by 2030. Instead, it is estimated that 582 million people will still face hunger. This means there is still work to do.

Addressing the Report’s Findings: How Rise Against Hunger Is Working to End Hunger

Rise Against Hunger remains committed to our mission of ending world hunger. We work to address immediate needs and support long-term solutions, predominantly working alongside remote, last-mile communities worldwide. That is because “the prevalence of food insecurity is higher in rural areas than in urban areas,” as the FAO reports. In 2023, nearly 32% of adults living in rural areas globally faced food insecurity. Additionally, we work in regions and countries facing high rates of hunger. The report provided a breakdown by region. Africa, Asia, and Latin American and the Caribbean all had high rates of hunger — 20.4%, 8.1% and 6.2% respectively. Rise Against Hunger aligns our efforts with this data, concentrating our work on those three regions. We also work in several countries highlighted in the report as having high levels of hunger, including South Sudan, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo. For example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sara receives Rise Against Hunger meals at school. She feels stronger and less fatigued, enabling her to focus on her education. And in South Sudan, Rise Against Hunger works with partner Lift Up the Vulnerable to implement Empowering Leaders Through Nutrition-Smart Agriculture, a sustainable agriculture project that promotes self-sufficiency for Hope for South Sudan, a local school, by increasing crop production and dietary diversity. Since the project launched, the students now receive meals from crops grown at the school and there are zero cases of malnutrition on campus.

*Sara receives meals at school in the Democratic Republic of Congo.*

In addition, while food insecurity’s gender gap has decreased, the report emphasized it is still a major issue. This informs our work. In Mali where only 5% of women are landowners, we are implementing a project alongside our partner AMEDD that promotes gender equality by making land and livestock ownership more attainable for women and youth. As part of the project, information about women and youth’s land rights has been disseminated to over 55,000 people, and that work continues.

What You Can Do: Ways to Take Action and Help End Hunger

Rise Against Hunger will not stop until zero hunger is a reality, and we need your help! Here are ways you can get involved:

Donate to support communities around the world. With a monthly gift of $30 – just $1 per day — you can nourish a child for an entire month.
Host a meal packaging event! With your business, church, civic organization, school or other group, you will assemble nutritious meals that are shipped across the globe. Through this hands-on experience, you will make a big impact and nourish lives.
Spread the word and stay informed. Grow the movement by telling your friends and family about the importance of addressing hunger and Rise Against Hunger’s mission. When more people know about this critical issue, more people get involved!

Strength, Stability And Hope

The gift that filled Nelly’s table.

“We were yielding very little, and the crops could not sustain us the whole year,” Nelly remembers. As a mother of seven and a farmer with two decades of experience, the stress of inconsistent yields was all-consuming. A poor harvest not only strained her family financially, but also limited their own meals to just two a day. Their story reflects that of many in their fishing and farming village near a lake in the Karonga district of northern Malawi. Here, heavy rainfall makes conventional farming methods nearly impossible. The entire village is, quite literally, saturated in food insecurity — a reality that leaves families struggling to survive season after season without a dependable source of nourishment.

In 2019, Nelly began participating in Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience, a sustainable agriculture project implemented by Rise Against Hunger in partnership with the Foundation for Community Support Services (FOCUS). The project works with 3,100 smallholder farmers in Malawi’s Karonga and Mzimba districts to strengthen food and nutrition security by improving production methods, nutrition practices and household income.

Just one year later, Nelly was ready to expand the variety of crops on her farm. What land once only produced maize began to flourish with sesame, cowpeas, rice and groundnuts during the rainy season (summer), as well as maize and vegetables during the dry season (winter). Through climate-smart agriculture training, she learned new techniques like manure making, pit planting and mulching, crop rotation and intercropping. Equipped with these tools, Nelly’s farm began to thrive.

After the 2023–2024 growing season, she sold enough produce to purchase an ox cart. Her harvests in 2024-2025 season yielded over 500 pounds of crops, including 22 bags of groundnuts, seven bags of maize, 12 tins of sesame and three bags of rice. With this surplus, she was able to invest in a motorbike, which she now uses to transport African doughnuts (mandasi) that she cooks and sells — creating yet another source of income for her family.

The transformation reaches far beyond her finances. Nelly now has the stability to provide for her husband and children. “I am able to eat different food types, pay school fees for my children and fulfill the visions that I have made with my family,” she beams. “I am now sleeping peacefully without any fears of food or paying school fees for the children.”

Her leadership has also grown. Today, Nelly serves as a leader in the Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience project, teaching other farmers in her district to adopt climate-resilient, labor-saving practices. By sharing her knowledge, she is multiplying her impact — empowering her neighbors to experience the same transformation she has achieved.

Across Nelly’s community, food and economic security are on the rise. Lombani, a government extension officer for the region, explains, “I can see the community is being transformed in the sense that in the area, there is food, income and nutrition security. Development is also happening at the household level.”

Nelly reflects on what it means to invest in holistic programs that address the root causes of hunger: “We are now healthy people. Children are going to school after eating their breakfast, having high yields and different types of crops due to conservation agriculture practices. With the support from the project, we have food, and we can access other food items from the market after selling our produce.”

This is the gift that fills: a future full of stability, strength and hope. It fills tables with food, families with security and communities with the resources to thrive. It’s an investment in futures rooted in resilience and hope.