Venezuela is the country with the highest hunger rate in South America

The United Nations (UN) published a report revealing the alarming increase in the number of people who suffer from hunger in Venezuela and ranked the country as the one with the highest prevalence of undernourishment in South America.

Several UN agencies developed a study on "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022" which reveals that hunger has increased globally in recent years. However, the report shows that the most alarming figures were from Latin America and the Caribbean, especially Venezuela.

The report states that in 2021 alone, 768 million people suffered from hunger, and 56.5 million were from Latin America and the Caribbean. Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia are the countries with the highest hunger rates in the region.

"In South America, Venezuela had the highest prevalence of undernourishment (22.9%), which in absolute numbers is equivalent to 6.5 million people", says the report, which is based on estimates for 2020 and 2021.

The study also reveals that the increase in Venezuela is significant. In fact, when comparing the number of people who suffer from hunger from 2013-2015 to those from 2019-2021, there was an increase of 18.4 percentage points, which is equivalent to five million more people suffering from undernourishment.

It is important to highlight that according to the study, the prevalence of undernourishment is when a person does not acquire enough food to meet the minimum daily dietary energy requirements for a period of at least one year.

Malnutrition

The report prepared by the UN agencies for health (WHO), food and agriculture (FAO), children (UNICEF), agricultural development (IFAD), and the World Food Program (WFP), also assessed the country's malnutrition crisis.

"Wasting or acute malnutrition is one of the most critical forms of malnutrition in early childhood, as it is associated with a high risk of mortality if cases are not adequately identified and treated in a timely manner," the report states. Unfortunately, this is a problem that affects 4.1% of children under the age of five in Venezuela.