Food and Agriculture

Food production has increased at an unprecedented rate since the United Nations was founded in 1945. Today, enough food is available to feed every child, woman and man on the planet. Between the early 1990s and 2016, the number of hungry people declined by 216 million globally, notwithstanding a 1.9 billion increase in the world’s population. Still, according to the World Food Programme (WFP), in 2023 about 783 million people did not have enough to eat.  

Most of the UN entities fighting hunger have social protection programmes to advance food security for the poorer sectors of the population, particularly in rural areas. Food security is among the most effective ways to break the cycle of hunger and poverty that entraps so many in the developing world. Since its establishment, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has been working to eradicate poverty and hunger by promoting sustainable rural and agricultural development, and improved food security. Investment in agriculture and rural development to boost food production and nutrition is a priority for the World Bank Group. And the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) focuses exclusively on rural poverty reduction, working with poor rural populations in developing countries to eliminate poverty, hunger, raise their productivity and incomes, and improve the quality of their lives.