Sustainable Development Goal 2
Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2), titled "Zero Hunger," is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with the objective to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture worldwide by 2030.[1] The goal encompasses 8 targets and 14 indicators addressing undernourishment, malnutrition in children, agricultural productivity, genetic diversity of seeds and livestock, sustainable food production systems, investment in rural infrastructure, and correction of trade restrictions on food commodities.[2] Progress toward SDG 2 has been uneven, with initial reductions in undernourishment from 2000 to 2015 stalling and reversing thereafter due to factors including the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflicts, economic shocks, and climate variability, resulting in approximately 733 million people—8.9% of the global population—facing hunger in 2023.[3] While some indicators show advancement, such as a 23% increase in global water-use efficiency in agriculture between 2000 and 2020 and growth in conserved plant genetic resources, the overall trajectory indicates the world is off-track to meet the zero hunger target, particularly in regions like sub-Saharan Africa where acute malnutrition persists amid population growth and inadequate infrastructure.[4][5] Critics highlight that SDG 2's emphasis on sustainability sometimes prioritizes environmental constraints over the imperative for yield increases needed to feed a projected 10 billion people by 2050, potentially exacerbating food insecurity if not balanced with technological and market-driven innovations, though empirical data underscores that conflicts and governance failures remain primary drivers of hunger rather than production shortfalls alone.[6] The goal's reliance on international aid and policy coordination has mobilized resources—such as increased financial flows to agriculture in developing countries—but has not sufficiently addressed root causes like political instability and inefficient subsidies, underscoring the limitations of top-down global frameworks in achieving causal reductions in hunger.[4]Historical Context
Declines in Global Hunger Pre-2015
Global undernourishment declined substantially from 1990 to 2014, with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimating a reduction of approximately 216 million undernourished people compared to 1990–1992 levels, reaching 795 million by 2014–2016.[7] This progress was driven primarily by agricultural productivity gains and economic liberalization rather than direct redistribution efforts.[8] The Green Revolution of the 1960s to 1980s played a foundational role, introducing high-yield hybrid seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and expanded irrigation, which increased cereal yields in developing countries by 100–200% for key staples like wheat, rice, and maize between 1960 and 2000.[8] In India, wheat production surged from 12 million tons in 1965 to 20 million tons by 1970, enabling food self-sufficiency and reducing reliance on imports.[9] These innovations, pioneered by researchers like Norman Borlaug, boosted output without proportional land expansion, averting widespread famine in Asia.[10] Post-reform economic policies in China and India further accelerated hunger reduction through market-oriented reforms that spurred GDP growth and poverty alleviation. China's 1978 agricultural decollectivization and subsequent liberalization lifted nearly 800 million from poverty over four decades, correlating with sharp drops in undernourishment via rising incomes and food availability.[11] In India, 1991 liberalization dismantled licensing barriers, fostering trade and investment that halved poverty rates from the 1990s to 2010s, with econometric analyses attributing declines primarily to income growth from productivity and exports rather than subsidies.[12][13] Econometric studies confirm that GDP per capita growth, often exceeding 6–7% annually in these high-performing economies, was the dominant causal factor in poverty and hunger reduction, with a 10% rise in national income typically cutting poverty by 20–30%.[14][15] Post-Cold War trade liberalization amplified this by integrating markets, boosting agricultural exports, and incentivizing efficiency over state controls.[16] These mechanisms—rooted in technological innovation and market incentives—underpinned pre-2015 successes, contrasting with later stagnation amid policy shifts.Legacy of Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goal 1 (MDG 1) aimed to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, with Target 1.C specifically seeking to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people suffering from hunger, measured by undernourishment prevalence. This target was met globally, as the share of undernourished individuals in developing regions declined from 23.3% in 1990–1992 to approximately 12.9% by 2014–2016, driven primarily by robust economic growth and agricultural productivity gains in Asia.[17] However, absolute numbers remained substantial, with an estimated 795 million people undernourished worldwide in 2015, highlighting that proportional reductions masked population growth and persistent absolute deprivation.[18] Progress under MDG 1 was markedly uneven across regions, with sub-Saharan Africa failing to achieve the hunger target due to slower economic expansion, recurrent conflicts, and institutional weaknesses that impeded effective aid utilization and agricultural investment.[19][20] In contrast to Asia's broad-based gains from market-oriented reforms, sub-Saharan rates of undernourishment hovered above 25% throughout the period, underscoring the limitations of aggregated global targets in addressing localized governance failures and fragility.[19] The 2015 United Nations review emphasized these disparities, noting that top-down goal-setting achieved measurable outcomes where enabling conditions like property rights and local accountability existed but faltered in contexts lacking such foundations, as evidenced by stalled reductions in fragile states.[21] The handover to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reflected these shortcomings by broadening MDG 1's poverty-hunger focus into SDG 2's comprehensive framework on ending hunger, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture, while integrating environmental sustainability to counter concerns over resource depletion.[22] This expansion inherited unresolved challenges, such as entrenched inequalities in vulnerable regions, where MDG-era progress stalled amid weak institutions, necessitating greater emphasis on resilient food systems over mere caloric sufficiency.[23][20]Objectives and Targets
Core Objectives
Sustainable Development Goal 2 seeks to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030, establishing an absolute "zero hunger" benchmark that contrasts with the Millennium Development Goal 1's target of halving the proportion of undernourished individuals between 1990 and 2015.[24] This aspirational shift emphasizes eradication rather than proportional reduction, aiming to address persistent undernourishment affecting approximately 828 million people as of recent estimates, though feasibility critiques highlight that linear extrapolations of historical productivity gains may overlook compounding factors like population expansion.[6] The goal's core objectives coalesce around three interconnected pillars: ensuring universal access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food year-round, particularly for vulnerable populations (target 2.1); combating all forms of malnutrition, including stunting, wasting, and overweight, with specific reductions such as a 40 percent decrease in stunted children under five by 2030 (target 2.2); and fostering resilient agricultural practices that double productivity and incomes for small-scale producers while maintaining genetic diversity in seeds, plants, and animals, and managing sustainable livestock and aquaculture systems (targets 2.3–2.5).[25] These are underpinned by means of implementation, including increased public and private investment in rural infrastructure, agricultural research, and technology development (2.a); correcting and preventing trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets (2.b); and adopting measures to ensure proper functioning of food commodity markets and timely access to market information and inputs for producers (2.c).[24] The 2030 timeline incorporates interim benchmarks aligned with prior commitments, such as the World Health Organization's 2025 global nutrition targets, which call for a 40 percent reduction in the number of stunted children under five from 2010 levels to build momentum toward SDG endpoints.[26] Empirical assessments suggest these objectives presume continued declines in hunger rates observed pre-2015, yet accelerating global population growth—projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050—could demand agricultural output increases of up to 70 percent from 2005–07 levels to sustain per capita food availability, underscoring causal dependencies on technological and policy innovations beyond historical trends.[27][28]Specific Targets and Indicators
Target 2.1 seeks to end hunger and ensure access by all people, particularly the poor and vulnerable including infants, to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food year-round by 2030. Its indicators include the prevalence of undernourishment, calculated as the percentage of the population with insufficient caloric intake based on dietary energy supply data adjusted for losses and requirements (2.1.1), and the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity measured by the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), which surveys household experiences of food access constraints (2.1.2).[1][29] Target 2.2 aims to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030, including meeting 2025 targets for reducing stunting and wasting in children under five, while addressing needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women, and older persons. Indicators track stunting as the percentage of children under five with height-for-age below minus two standard deviations from WHO Child Growth Standards medians (2.2.1); malnutrition by type, including wasting (weight-for-height below minus two standard deviations) and overweight (above plus two) among children under five (2.2.2); and anaemia prevalence in women aged 15-49 by pregnancy status (2.2.3).[1][30] Target 2.3 focuses on doubling agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, especially women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists, and fishers, by 2030 through secure access to land, resources, inputs, knowledge, finance, markets, and value addition. Measurable progress uses volume of production per labor unit, disaggregated by enterprise size classes in farming, pastoralism, or forestry (2.3.1), and average income of small-scale producers by sex and indigenous status (2.3.2), highlighting yield gaps where smallholders often produce 20-50% less than potential due to input and technology constraints in empirical studies.[1][31] Target 2.4 calls for sustainable food production systems and resilient practices by 2030 that boost productivity, maintain ecosystems, adapt to climate extremes, and improve land and soil quality. The sole indicator is the proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture, assessed via criteria like no chemical overuse, integrated pest management, water efficiency, and soil conservation to enable metrics on sustainable intensification without yield trade-offs.[1][32] Target 2.5 requires maintaining genetic diversity of seeds, plants, farmed animals, and wild relatives by 2020 through managed seed banks and equitable benefit-sharing from genetic resources. Indicators count plant and animal genetic resources secured in medium- or long-term conservation facilities (2.5.1) and the proportion of local breeds at extinction risk (2.5.2), addressing empirical losses where over 1,000 breeds have vanished since 2000 per FAO data.[1][33] Target 2.a promotes increased investment in rural infrastructure, research, extension, technology, and gene banks to enhance capacity in developing countries. Indicators include the agriculture orientation index, ratio of government agriculture spending to total outlays (2.a.1), and total official flows to agriculture, combining aid and other official financing (2.a.2).[1][34] Target 2.b mandates correcting trade restrictions and distortions, including eliminating export subsidies per Doha Round commitments. The indicator tracks agricultural export subsidies as a binary measure of their existence or value, though empirical analyses from WTO and OECD reveal these as minor compared to persistent domestic supports and tariffs averaging 15-20% equivalent in high-income countries, which distort markets more substantially by raising global prices and limiting access for net importers.[1][35] Target 2.c requires measures for proper food commodity market functioning and timely information access to curb price volatility, including on reserves. The indicator is food price anomalies, derived from deviations in international price indices from trend levels to quantify volatility episodes.[1][36]Progress Assessment
Empirical Trends to 2025
Global prevalence of undernourishment fell from 14.9% (approximately 1 billion people) in 2000 to 8.9% (672 million people) by 2014-2016, driven by economic growth and agricultural advancements prior to the SDGs. Post-2015 adoption of SDG 2, however, this decline stalled, with rates remaining near 8.9% through 2019 before rising to 9.2% during 2019-2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic and related disruptions. By 2023, undernourishment affected 733 million people (9.1% of the global population), marking three years of stagnation without recovery from earlier peaks.[37] Early 2024 estimates show a marginal drop to 8.2%, but the absence of sustained post-2015 reductions contrasts sharply with pre-SDG momentum, impeding the zero hunger target.[38] Child stunting, a key SDG 2.2 indicator, impacted 148.1 million children under age five in 2022 (22.3% prevalence), missing the 2025 target of a 40% reduction from the 2012 baseline of 26%.[39] Wasting affected 45 million children (6.8%), exceeding the global aspiration of under 5% and highlighting persistent nutritional deficits despite a one-third drop in stunting since 2000.[39] Updated 2024 figures indicate 150.2 million stunted children, underscoring trajectory shortfalls for SDG endpoints.[40] Global agricultural productivity has advanced modestly since 2015, with total factor productivity growth averaging 1.0-1.5% annually through 2023, enabling supply expansions amid population pressures.[41] Cereal yields, for instance, rose from 3.9 tons per hectare in 2015 to about 4.2 tons by 2023, reflecting incremental technological uptake.[42] Yet smallholder farmers, comprising much of the sector, have seen uneven income gains due to volatile input costs—such as fertilizers surging 50-100% post-2021—eroding margins and limiting poverty alleviation tied to SDG 2.3.[43]Regional Disparities
Significant regional disparities characterize progress toward SDG 2, with undernourishment prevalence varying widely across continents as of 2024. In Asia, rates have continued to decline, reaching 6.7 percent of the population, or approximately 323 million people, driven by agricultural exports and technological adoption in market-oriented economies such as those in East and South-Eastern Asia.[44] In contrast, sub-Saharan Africa maintains the world's highest levels, with 22.5 percent of the population undernourished, affecting over 280 million individuals amid persistent challenges.[45] Latin America exhibits intermediate outcomes at around 6.2 percent undernourishment, though intra-regional variations highlight policy divergences.[46] ![Comparing GHI Scores by Region 1990-2011][float-right] Eastern and South-Eastern Asia demonstrate some of the strongest gains, with undernourishment below 5 percent in many countries by 2023, reflecting sustained reductions from pre-2015 levels through export-led agricultural growth and productivity enhancements. Southern Asia has also seen notable improvements, dropping from higher baselines, though pockets of stunting remain above 30 percent in certain nations. Western Asia, however, shows stagnation or slight increases, with prevalence around 8-10 percent.[47] These trends underscore Asia's overall trajectory toward SDG 2 targets, contrasting sharply with other developing regions. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for nearly half of global undernourished individuals despite comprising about 15 percent of the world population, with rates exceeding 20 percent consistently since 2015 and showing no net decline into 2024. North Africa fares better at under 5 percent, but the sub-Saharan burden dominates continental figures, exacerbating inequalities within Africa.[37] In Latin America and the Caribbean, undernourishment hovers at 6.2 percent, with successes in countries like Brazil—where prevalence fell below 3 percent by the early 2010s through market-oriented reforms and export expansion—offset by deteriorations elsewhere, such as Venezuela's surge above 20 percent following policy shifts toward state control. Central America maintains rates around 7-8 percent, while South America's variability reflects differing economic strategies.[46]| Region | Prevalence of Undernourishment (2023-2024 est.) | Affected Population (millions) |
|---|---|---|
| Eastern/South-Eastern Asia | <5% | ~100 |
| Southern Asia | ~8% | ~200 |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 22.5% | >280 |
| Latin America/Caribbean | 6.2% | ~40 |