Sustainable Development Goal 2

Sustainable Development Goal 2
Mission statement"End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture"
Commercial?No
Type of projectNon-Profit
LocationGlobal
FounderUnited Nations
Established2015
Websitesdgs.un.org

Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2 or Global Goal 2) aims to achieve "zero hunger". It is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015. The official wording is: "End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture".[1][2] SDG 2 highlights the "complex inter-linkages between food security, nutrition, rural transformation and sustainable agriculture".[3] According to the United Nations, there were up to 757 million people facing hunger in 2023 – one out of 11 people in the world,[4] which accounts for slightly less than 10 percent of the world population.[5] One in every nine people goes to bed hungry each night, including 20 million people currently at risk of famine in South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria.[6]

SDG 2 has eight targets and 14 indicators to measure progress.[7] The five outcome targets are: ending hunger and improving access to food; ending all forms of malnutrition; agricultural productivity; sustainable food production systems and resilient agricultural practices; and genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals; investments, research and technology. The three means of implementation targets[8] include: addressing trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets and food commodity markets and their derivatives.[7][9]

After falling for decades,[10] under-nutrition rose after 2015, with causes including various stresses in food systems such as climate shocks, the locust crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Those threats indirectly reduced the purchasing power and the capacity to produce and distribute food, which affects the most vulnerable populations and furthermore has reduced their accessibility to food.[11]

While the world was witnessing a gradual decline in under-nutrition in 2023, the double burden of malnutrition – defined as the co-existence of undernutrition together with overweight and obesity – has been on the rise over the last two decades, characterized by a sharp increase in obesity rates and with only a gradual decline in thinness and underweight. Underweight among adults and the elderly has been cut in half while obesity is on the rise in all age groups.[4]

The world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030. "The signs of increasing hunger and food insecurity are a warning that there is considerable work to be done to make sure the world "leaves no one behind" on the road towards a world with zero hunger."[12] It is unlikely there will be an end to malnutrition in Africa by 2030.[13][14]

Data from 2019 showed that "globally, 1 in 9 people are undernourished, the vast majority of whom live in developing countries. Under nutrition causes wasting or severe wasting of 52 million children worldwide".[15]

  1. ^ United Nations (2015) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (A/RES/70/1)
  2. ^ "Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture — SDG Indicators". unstats.un.org. Retrieved 2022-06-15.
  3. ^ "2017 HLPF Thematic review of SDG2" (PDF). High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
  4. ^ a b FAO; IFAD; UNICEF; WFP; WHO (2024). The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024. FAO ; IFAD ; UNICEF ; WFP ; WHO. doi:10.4060/cd1254en. ISBN 978-92-5-138882-2.
  5. ^ "World Population Clock". worldometers.com. worldometers. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
  6. ^ mercy corps, global hunger facts (18 March 2015). "Global hunger facts".
  7. ^ a b United Nations (2017) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development (A/RES/71/313)
  8. ^ Bartram, Jamie; Brocklehurst, Clarissa; Bradley, David; Muller, Mike; Evans, Barbara (December 2018). "Policy review of the means of implementation targets and indicators for the sustainable development goal for water and sanitation". npj Clean Water. 1 (1): 3. Bibcode:2018npjCW...1....3B. doi:10.1038/s41545-018-0003-0. S2CID 169226066. Text was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
  9. ^ "Explained: What is zero-hunger which is a Sustainable Development Goal?". News9live. 2023-07-24. Retrieved 2023-07-31.
  10. ^ CIRAD, food systems (28 April 2021). "Food systems at risk: trends and challenges".
  11. ^ Leal Filho, Walter; Brandli, Luciana Londero; Lange Salvia, Amanda; Rayman-Bacchus, Lez; Platje, Johannes (2020-07-01). "COVID-19 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Threat to Solidarity or an Opportunity?". Sustainability. 12 (13): 5343. doi:10.3390/su12135343. ISSN 2071-1050. Text was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
  12. ^ FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2018. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018. Building climate resilience for food security and nutrition. Rome, FAO
  13. ^ Osgood-Zimmerman, Aaron; Millear, Anoushka I.; Stubbs, Rebecca W.; Shields, Chloe; Pickering, Brandon V.; Earl, Lucas; Graetz, Nicholas; Kinyoki, Damaris K.; Ray, Sarah E.; Bhatt, Samir; Browne, Annie J. (2018-03-01). "Mapping child growth failure in Africa between 2000 and 2015". Nature. 555 (7694): 41–47. Bibcode:2018Natur.555...41O. doi:10.1038/nature25760. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 6346257. PMID 29493591.
  14. ^ Kinyoki, D.; et al. (8 January 2020). "Mapping child growth failure across low- and middle-income countries". Nature. 577 (7789): 231–234. Bibcode:2020Natur.577..231L. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1878-8. PMC 7015855. PMID 31915393.
  15. ^ "Progress for Every Child in the SDG Era" (PDF). UNICEF. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 July 2020. Retrieved 2 April 2018.