Around 281.6 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity in 2023. Last year, food crises increased dramatically in conflict zones such as Sudan. This data is contained in the most recent edition of the Global Report on Food Crises produced by the Food Security Information Network, which analyzed 59 countries/territories in food crisis.
Although the overall percentage of the analyzed population facing high levels of acute food insecurity was lower than in 2022, it remained higher than pre-pandemic levels.
The conflict that began last year in Sudan caused a rapid increase in acute food insecurity and malnutrition among these populations. “The serious escalation of the conflict in Sudan from April 2023 has led to devastating food crises”points out the report.
Classification
To assess a situation of acute food insecurity, international agencies use a technical tool, the Integrated Food Security Classification Framework, which is based on a scale of international scientific standards.
The ‘Hunger’ classification represents the most severe phase of the IPC acute food insecurity scale, which has five stages: phase 1 (minimal), phase 2 (stress), phase 3 (crisis), phase 4 (emergency) and, finally, phase 5 (catastrophe/famine).
Sudan has the highest number of people in the world facing Emergency (IPC Phase 4) levels of acute food insecurity.
