The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) is an annual report jointly published by the several bodies of the United Nations: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); International Fund For Agricultural Development (IFAD), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP) and World Health Organization (WHO). The theme of the 2019 report is Safeguarding against economic slowdowns and downturns.
SOFI is intended to "inform on progress towards ending hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition and to provide in-depth analysis on key challenges for achieving this goal in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development." Importantly, the 2019 report highlights the increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity, despite the fact that more than 820 million people are still hungry. This underscores the scale and complexity of achieving healthy and sustainable diets within the context of the SDGs, and the need for more and better collaboration. There are important takeaways for anyone working on nutrition issues, whether from government, civil society or business.
In addition to reading the report itself, there have been some helpful analyses to help contextualise the data, trends and implications as laid out in the report:
- Looking beyond hunger: thoughts on SOFI 2019 - SDG2 Advocacy Hub, blog written by Gerda Verburg (UN Assistant Secretary-General and Coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement) and Elwyn Grainger-Jones (Executive Director, CGIAR System Organization)
- What does a new UN report reveal about global hunger and obesity? - Brookings, podcast with Senior Fellow John McArthur
- SOFI 2019: Safeguarding against economic slowdowns and downturns - Food & Business Knowledge Platform, summary