This background paper to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023 discusses the dynamics and drivers of urbanization, the associated changes in agrifood systems and the corresponding risks and opportunities to ensuring access to affordable healthy diets for all. The paper is based on a systematic review and meta-analysis of evidence from scientific papers and informed by new analyses conducted for the 2023 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. A conceptual framework is presented for understanding the different pathways through which urbanization is driving changes in agrifood systems across the rural–urban continuum, and is, in turn, affecting access to affordable healthy diets.

This report provides an update on global progress towards the targets of ending hunger (SDG Target 2.1) and all forms of malnutrition (SDG Target 2.2) and estimates on the number of people who are unable to afford a healthy diet. Since its 2017 edition, this report has repeatedly highlighted that the intensification and interaction of conflict, climate extremes and economic slowdowns and downturns, combined with highly unaffordable nutritious foods and growing inequality, are pushing us off track to meet the SDG 2 targets. However, other important megatrends must also be factored into the analysis to fully understand the challenges and opportunities for meeting the SDG 2 targets. One such megatrend, and the focus of this year’s report, is urbanization. New evidence shows that food purchases in some countries are no longer high only among urban households but also among rural households. Consumption of highly processed foods is also increasing in peri-urban and rural areas of some countries. These changes are affecting people’s food security and nutrition in ways that differ depending on where they live across the rural–urban continuum. This timely and relevant theme is aligned with the United Nations General Assembly-endorsed New Urban Agenda, and the report provides recommendations on the policies, investments and actions needed to address the challenges of agrifood systems transformation under urbanization and to enable opportunities for ensuring access to affordable healthy diets for everyone.

This background paper to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023 analyses a key element of agrifood systems transformation: the change of patterns in food supply and demand. Several studies have discussed this topic, but the current one takes an innovative perspective of analysis, considering these changes with a spatial perspective using the urban rural catchment areas (URCA) approach to analyse changes in food expenditure across the rural–urban continuum, using Living Standards Measurement Studies (LSMS) of 11 African countries. The analysis is preceded by a literature review of agrifood value chains transformation stages, drivers and current situation, focused in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and is followed by a macro review of food supply around the world and a “macro-meso” review of the supply of wheat and rice in two African countries. The conclusions shows that most food is purchased in all households across the rural–urban continuum, even in rural areas, breaking with the “myth” of rural subsistence farming in Africa. In addition, the results show a diffusion of the consumption of processed foods, including in a lesser extent highly processed foods, all across the rural–urban continuum, and not only in rural areas. From a food supply perspective, the low global availability of foods that are part of a healthy diet, as fruits, vegetables and legumes, nuts and seeds calls for increasing efforts for producing more nutritious foods in all countries of the world.

Progress toward reducing global hunger has stalled since the mid-2010s. In fact, hunger is on the rise again, driven by slowing economic growth and protracted conflict, intensified by the impacts of climate change and economic shocks in many low- and middle-income countries. In addition, food systems worldwide have suffered disruptions in recent years, caused by the COVID-19-related global recession and associated supply chain disruptions, and exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. These factors have also jeopardized efforts at addressing the challenges to food system sustainability. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the related sustainable development goals (SDGs), defined in 2015, recognize these challenges and set ambitious targets to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition and to make agriculture and food systems sustainable by 2030. Many other fora have restated and reiterated these ambitions, including the 2021 United Nations Food System Summit (UNFSS). While governments around the world have subscribed to these ambitions, collectively they have not been very specific as to how to achieve the SDGs and related goals and targets, except for three means of implementation (MOI) involving (i) increases in research and development, (ii) reductions in trade distortions, and (iii) improved functioning and reduced volatility in food markets. This paper is part of a wider effort at assessing the international community’s follow-through on the above ambitions and the related (implicit or explicit) commitments made toward action for achieving them. While not presenting new research findings, we bring together available evidence and scenario analyses to assess the progress made toward the ambitions for transforming food systems, the actions taken in regard of the internationally concerted agenda, and the potential for accelerating progress. The number of hungry people in the world has risen from 564 million in 2015, when the SDGs were agreed, to 735 million in 2022. While declines to between 570 and 590 million by 2030 are projected, this is far above the 470 million projected in the absence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war. The share of the world’s people unable to afford healthy diets is projected to decline from 42 percent in 2021 to a still far too high 36 percent by 2030. On the means of implementation, levels of spending on agricultural research and development have increased, particularly in key developing countries such as Brazil, China and India. However, rates of investment remain too low for comfort, particularly in low-income countries. Also, little progress has been made in reducing agricultural trade distortions and many countries continue to use trade policy measures, such as export restrictions, which have proven to increase the volatility of both world and domestic food prices. We conclude that progress toward the SDG-2 targets has been dismal, and that the food system challenges have only become bigger. But we also find that it is not too late to accelerate progress and that the desired food system transformation can still be achieved over a reasonable timespan and at manageable incremental cost. Doing so will require unprecedented concerted and coherent action on multiple fronts, which may prove the biggest obstacle of all.

Countries across Africa are rapidly transitioning from rural to urban societies. The UN projects that 60% of people living in Africa will be in urban areas by 2050, with the urban population on the continent tripling over the next 50 years. The challenge of building inclusive and sustainable cities in the context of rapid urbanization is arguably the critical development issue of the 21st Century and creating food secure cities is key to promoting health, prosperity, equity, and ecological sustainability. The expansion of Africa’s urban population is taking place largely in secondary cities: these are broadly defined as cities with fewer than half a million people that are not national political or economic centres. The implications of secondary urbanization have recently been described by the Cities Alliance as “a real knowledge gap”, requiring much additional research not least because it poses new intellectual challenges for academic researchers and governance challenges for policy-makers. International researchers coming from multiple points of view including food studies, urban studies, and sustainability studies, are starting to heed the call for further research into the implications for food security of rapidly growing secondary cities in Africa. This book will combine this research and feature comparable case studies, intersecting trends, and shed light on broad concepts including governance, sustainability, health, economic development, and inclusivity. This is an open access book.

The ways in which the rapid urbanization of the Global South is transforming food systems and food supply chains, and the food security of urban populations is an often neglected topic. This international group of authors addresses this profound transformation from a variety of different perspectives and disciplinary lenses, providing an important corrective to the dominant view that food insecurity is a rural problem requiring increases in agricultural production. Starting from the premise that food security in urban areas is primarily a challenge of food access, the chapters explore the various economic, social and governance policies and structures that constrain and inhibit the access of all to food of sufficient quantity and quality. As the global south continues to urbanize, the challenge of feeding hungry cities will become even more daunting, and this Handbook explains why the existing food system, although undergoing rapid change, is inadequate for this task and cannot meet the challenge without substantial reform. The Handbook as a whole, and the individual chapters, provide comprehensive overviews of relevant themes mixed with empirical, real-world examples for university readership teaching and taking courses on food systems, migration and urbanization, urban policy and planning, geography, agricultural economics, public health and international development. It will also introduce practitioners to current debates in the field and provide strong support for the renewed, and growing, focus on the food security of urban populations.