Attachments
Key findings
High levels of acute food insecurity persist in 2023 due to protracted food crises and new shocks – but there are improvements in some countries.
This Mid-Year Update only includes 48 of the 73 GRFC 2023 food-crisis countries/ territories with analyses covering 2023 that were available by early August.
At 21 percent, the share of the total analysed population in need of urgent food assistance in the 48 countries is largely unchanged (from 22 percent in 2022).
In these 48 countries, 21.6 million more people face high levels of acute food insecurity than in 2022 (a 10 percent increase), bringing the number to 238 million. The increase is due both to a 16 percent expansion in analysis coverage among vulnerable populations in a few countries including Bangladesh, Angola,
Ghana, Pakistan and Nigeria, and persistent or intensifying conflict/insecurity, weather extremes and economic shocks.
Conditions have worsened in nine countries since 2022, including the Sudan with an additional 8.6 million people facing high levels of acute food insecurity, and Somalia and Burundi with around 1 million more each. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and the Sudan have the largest numbers of people, while South Sudan, Yemen and Haiti have the largest share. More than half of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon are facing these high levels.
The 15 countries with improvements include Sri Lanka, the Niger and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but recent developments in the Niger may reverse this.
In 36 out of 39 countries with IPC/CH analyses, around 33.6 million people face Emergency (IPC/CH Phase 4), with almost half of them in the Sudan, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In 39 countries with IPC/CH analyses, around 285 million people face Stressed (IPC/CH Phase 2) in 2023. Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi have the highest shares of their populations in this phase.
In 2023, 27.2 million children under 5 years are affected by wasting in 21 food-crisis countries with data, of whom nearly 7.2 million are severely wasted.
An estimated 6.3 million pregnant and breastfeeding women are affected by acute malnutrition in 15 food-crisis countries with data. Significant increases in numbers of wasted children are estimated in Kenya, Mauritania and the Sudan.
The overall number of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity in 2023 will likely increase as new data become available for GRFC countries/territories that do not yet have 2023 data, and if drivers intensify.
Data gaps remain a concern. No data are available for 25 countries/territories, ten of which had data in 2022 accounting for 41 million people facing high levels of acute food insecurity. They include some of the largest food crises, such as Myanmar, the Syrian Arab Republic and Ukraine.