Madrid. Only a third of the requirements of countries facing critical hunger levels were satisfied in 2023, which means that there is a financing deficit for the rest of the population with more urgent needs, revealed a report from the humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger (ACH).

The document titled 2024 Hunger Funding Gapshowed that last year the deficit to finance food needs rose 35 percent, just over a third of what was necessary, mainly due to conflict, climate change and chronic inequality.

The world produces enough food for everyone, yet hundreds of thousands of malnourished children die preventably each year.explained the general director of Action Against Hunger, Olivier Longué.

The report, with data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, identified 17 countries that experienced high levels of hunger in 2022 and 2023: Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Lebanon, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen.

Of these, the nations with the largest financing deficit against hunger are Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala and Haiti.

Around the world, 783 million people – more than the population of the European Union and the United States combined – suffer from hunger, the NGO shows, that is, 122 million more people than before the covid-19 pandemic.

The executive president of Action Against Hunger in the United States, Charles Owubah, explained that $8.86 billion would be needed to fully fund the hunger-related requirements of the 17 countries in this report. According to the NGO, this amount is equivalent to approximately half of what it is estimated that the American public bet on the last edition of the Super Bowl.