Feeding the world – never-ending hunger?

Over the last 20 years, the international community has made great progress in reducing hunger throughout the world. But millions of people still have too little to eat, and many more are not getting balanced nutrition. What is more, the coronavirus pandemic is jeopardising hard-won successes. At the same time, the world population continues to grow – estimates predict almost 10 billion people by the middle of the century. This is the context for making food the focus of the current issue of GIZ’s akzente magazine. How can everyone eat their fill in future? What needs to change so that people everywhere can afford an adequate, balanced diet? The new issue discusses how this might be achieved and presents ideas and visions for the future. 

The magazine tackles some fundamental issues. It shows the causal relationship between one person’s food waste and the next person’s food shortage, and casts light on how this is interlinked with other major challenges of our time. African scientist Jemimah Njuki considers the global food system to be fundamentally flawed. In her essay, she explains how malnutrition and gender equality are connected. For Agnes Kalibata, UN Special Envoy and an expert on nutrition and food security, one-off measures are not sufficient. She argues that it is time to re-examine the entire system and make it more sustainable, while keeping the impacts of climate change clearly in focus.

Addressing food security also calls for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. Innovations in agriculture are therefore the subject of reports from Namibia and Mali. Farmers in Namibia are defying bush encroachment in their region by producing animal feed from the shrubs. This not only secures the survival of their herds in periods of drought but also creates new jobs. In Mali, smallholders are increasing their incomes thanks to new vegetable varieties, improved rice cultivation and goat breeding – and supplying healthy food at the same time.