Dataset · FAO
Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity
10 years, 2015–2024 · 135 countries · 6 measures
This is the share of people living in households where adults had to eat less, or settle for worse food, at some point in the year because they lacked money or other resources. It is SDG indicator 2.1.2, measured by FAO by asking people directly with its Food Insecurity Experience Scale.
This site holds every year from 2015 to 2024, read from FAO’s own data and stored exactly as published.
Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity · the file
- Newest
- Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, 2024
- Held
- 10 years · 1,274 rows
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
0110 years
Every year
Every year comes from FAO’s 2026 release, recalculated on one method. Each opens the full table for that year; each downloads as a CSV.
| Year | Countries | Change | Read | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, 2024Newest | 135 | +2 −2 | October 3, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, 2023 | 135 | +2 −14 | October 3, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, 2022 | 147 | +3 −1 | October 3, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, 2021 | 145 | +4 −2 | October 3, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, 2020 | 143 | +10 −2 | October 3, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, 2019 | 135 | +14 | October 3, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, 2018 | 121 | +10 −3 | October 3, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, 2017 | 114 | +14 | October 3, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, 2016 | 100 | +1 | October 3, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, 2015 | 99 | — | October 3, 2026 | CSV |
Every year in one file, one row per country per year: food-insecurity-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv
028 columns
What’s in the file
Every column, what it holds, how it is stored and what its values look like — what a reader needs before opening the file.
| Column | What it holds | Stored as | Range, 2024 | Distinct | Empty | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ISO Codecountry_codeIdentifier | The ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, added by this site. Every table here joins on it. | Text · 3 letters | — | 135 | 0 | |
CountrycountryName | The country’s name, as this file spells it. | Text | — | 135 | 0 | |
Population in moderate or severe food insecurity (%)food_insecurityHeadline | The headline figure: Population in moderate or severe food insecurity (%). | Number · up to 1 decimal | 1.0 Belarus88.8 South Sudanmiddle 20.9 | 117 | 0 | |
90% confidence interval, lower bound (%)lower_boundMeasure | The lower end of FAO's 90% confidence interval for the headline figure, in %; empty where FAO publishes it only as below 0.5. | Number · up to 1 decimal | 0.9 Kazakhstan87.2South Sudanmiddle 19.8 | 123 | 1 | |
90% confidence interval, upper bound (%)upper_boundMeasure | The upper end of FAO's 90% confidence interval for the headline figure, in %. | Number · up to 1 decimal | 1.5 Cyprus91.1 Sierra Leonemiddle 22.4 | 118 | 0 | |
Women aged 15 and over (%)female_adultsMeasure | The share of women aged 15 and over who are moderately or severely food insecure, in %, measured on individuals rather than households. | Number · up to 1 decimal | 1.1Belarus88.8South Sudanmiddle 21.5 | 119 | 0 | |
Men aged 15 and over (%)male_adultsMeasure | The share of men aged 15 and over who are moderately or severely food insecure, in %, measured on individuals rather than households. | Number · up to 1 decimal | 0.8Belarus88.8South Sudanmiddle 20.2 | 115 | 0 | |
People in moderate or severe food insecurity (millions)people_millionsMeasure | The number of people in moderate or severe food insecurity, in millions, as FAO publishes it; empty where FAO publishes it only as below 0.1 million. | Number · up to 1 decimal | 0.211 share it178.1 Nigeriamiddle 3.3 | 79 | 11 |
Profiled from the newest file. Range: the lowest and highest value, with the country holding it when only one does. Spread: countries in ten equal steps from lowest to highest. A higher value is the worse result.
03156 countries across every year
Who is covered
How many countries each year holds, continent by continent, who joined and who left, and which places this site covers that the dataset never has.
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Africa | 26 | 27 | 33 | 34 | 37 | 42 | 42 | 43 | 39 | 38 |
| Americas | 17 | 17 | 19 | 20 | 22 | 25 | 27 | 28 | 23 | 23 |
| Asia | 18 | 18 | 22 | 25 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 29 | 29 | 30 |
| Europe | 36 | 36 | 36 | 36 | 38 | 38 | 39 | 39 | 39 | 39 |
| Oceania | 2 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 5 |
| All | 99 | 100 | 114 | 121 | 135 | 143 | 145 | 147 | 135 | 135 |
Who joined and who left
- 2024
+ Kyrgyzstan
+ Paraguay
− Antigua and Barbuda
− Comoros - 2023
+ United Arab Emirates+ Cyprus
− Bahamas
− Barbados
− Central African Republic
− Djibouti
− Dominica
− Fiji
− Guinea-Bissau− Kyrgyzstan
− Maldives
− Nauru− Paraguay
− São Tomé and Príncipe
− Suriname
− Tonga - 2022
+ Burundi
+ Palau
+ Trinidad and Tobago
− Timor-Leste - 2021+ Antigua and Barbuda
+ Bolivia
+ Guyana
+ Italy
− Saint Kitts and Nevis
− Vanuatu - 2020+ Bahamas+ Barbados+ Central African Republic+ Comoros+ Djibouti+ Dominica+ Nauru+ São Tomé and Príncipe+ Suriname
+ Eswatini
− Papua New Guinea
− Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - 2019
+ Angola
+ Belgium+ Belarus
+ Belize
+ DR Congo+ Fiji
+ Haiti
+ Laos
+ Liberia+ Maldives
+ Myanmar
+ Mongolia+ Timor-Leste+ Tonga - 2018
+ Kiribati+ Saint Kitts and Nevis
+ Lebanon
+ Lesotho
+ Madagascar
+ Philippines
+ Thailand
+ Uruguay+ Vanuatu
+ South Africa− Liberia
− Saint Lucia
− Seychelles - 2017
+ Armenia
+ Burkina Faso
+ Cabo Verde+ Guinea-Bissau
+ Grenada+ Kazakhstan+ Kyrgyzstan
+ Mali
+ Niger+ Papua New Guinea+ South Sudan+ Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
+ Vietnam
+ Samoa
Not in this dataset · 69 places this site covers
FAO gives no figure for these in any year held here. It is the publisher’s choice of scope, and each place’s profile shows what is measured.
American Samoa
Andorra
Anguilla
Aruba
Bahrain
Bermuda
Bhutan
British Virgin Islands
Brunei
Cayman IslandsChannel Islands
China
Cook Islands
Cuba
Curaçao
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Faroe Islands
French Polynesia
Gabon
Gibraltar
Greenland
Guam
Guinea
Hong Kong
India
Iraq
Isle of Man
Jordan
Kosovo
Liechtenstein
Macau
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Monaco
Montserrat
Morocco
Mozambique
New Caledonia
Nicaragua
Niue
North KoreaNorthern Cyprus
Northern Mariana Islands
Oman
Palestine
Panama
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Republic of the Congo
Rwanda
Saint Martin
San Marino
Saudi Arabia
Sint Maarten
Solomon Islands
SomaliaSomaliland
Sudan
Syria
Taiwan
Türkiye
Turkmenistan
Turks and Caicos Islands
Tuvalu
United States Virgin Islands
Uzbekistan
Vatican City
Venezuela04Provenance
Where it comes from
The path from the publisher to this page, and what was checked and changed on the way.
1 · Publisher
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
2 · Their file
Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity 2024
3 · Read by this site
October 3, 2026
Imported by a script that parses each figure and writes it down unrounded.4 · Stored as
10 files, one per year
Each downloads as a CSV, or every year together as food-insecurity-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv5 · Used on
Its statistic page, and every profile it measures
Precision
The headline is stored to 1 decimal, as published.
Rounded by this site
Never. Tables on screen may show fewer decimals; the files never do.
Changed by this site
Reshaped into one row per country: regional and income-group totals are left out, only the columns listed are kept, each row gets its ISO 3166 code, and some country names are brought to one spelling. No value is recalculated, rescaled or rounded.
FAOSTAT's Suite of Food Security Indicators, read from FAO's own bulk download. The confidence interval, the shares among adult women and adult men, and the number of people are stored beside it.
05Reuse
Licence and credit
What the publisher’s licence lets you do, what it asks of you, and a credit line and citation ready to copy.
Licence · checked October 3, 2026
- Share and redistribute it
- Adapt it and build on it
- Use it commercially
- Credit the publisher
- Say what you changed
Share, adapt and use commercially. Credit the publisher and say if you changed anything.
A credit line
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, via Nations Inquiry.
Cite this dataset
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity, 2015–2024 [data set]. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/food-insecurity
The publisher’s own citation: FAO. 2026. FAOSTAT: Suite of Food Security Indicators. Accessed on 3 October 2026. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
Plain-language summary, not legal advice. The licence text is what binds.
06Where it is used
Around the site
Where these numbers appear on this site, and the datasets nearest to it.
Charted
Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity by countryWho is highest, the map, the spread, who rose and fell, and the records.
Subjects
Near neighbours
- Life Expectancy at BirthUN DESA Population Division · 74 held · 1950–2023
- Under-Five Mortality RateUN IGME · 73 held · 1952–2024
- Prevalence of Severe Food InsecurityFAO · 9 held · 2015–2023
07Questions
Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity: questions and answers
What is the Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity?
This is the share of people living in households where adults had to eat less, or settle for worse food, at some point in the year because they lacked money or other resources. It is SDG indicator 2.1.2, measured by FAO by asking people directly with its Food Insecurity Experience Scale.
Which years of the Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity can I download?
All 10, from 2015 to 2024, each as a CSV file, or every year together in one CSV.
Does FAO rank countries on it?
No. FAO publishes values only. The positions shown on this site are derived by ordering the published values, and are labelled as ours.
Can I use it commercially?
Yes, under CC BY 4.0, with credit to FAO. The licence text is linked on this page.