Dataset · FAO
Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity
10 years, 2015–2024 · 125 countries · 6 measures
Severe food insecurity is the share of people who ran out of food, or went a whole day without eating, at some point in the year. The FAO gets it by asking them — the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, SDG indicator 2.1.2 — which makes it the human counterpart to its supply-based undernourishment estimate.
This site holds every year from 2015 to 2024, read from FAO’s own data and stored exactly as published.
Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity · the file
- Newest
- Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, 2024
- Held
- 10 years · 1,189 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 Severe Food Insecurity, 2024Newest | 125 | +2 −2 | October 13, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, 2023 | 125 | +1 −16 | October 13, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, 2022 | 140 | +5 −1 | October 13, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, 2021 | 136 | +5 −2 | October 13, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, 2020 | 133 | +12 −3 | October 13, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, 2019 | 124 | +15 −2 | October 13, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, 2018 | 111 | +10 −6 | October 13, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, 2017 | 107 | +13 | October 13, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, 2016 | 94 | +1 −1 | October 13, 2026 | CSV |
| Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, 2015 | 94 | — | October 13, 2026 | CSV |
Every year in one file, one row per country per year: severe-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 | — | 125 | 0 | |
CountrycountryName | The country’s name, as this file spells it. | Text | — | 125 | 0 | |
Population in severe food insecurity (%)severe_food_insecurityHeadline | The headline figure: Population in severe food insecurity (%). | Number · up to 1 decimal | 0.67 share it62.9 South Sudanmiddle 4.9 | 84 | 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 | 0.52 share it61.2South Sudanmiddle 4.0 | 81 | 11 | |
90% confidence interval, upper bound (%)upper_boundMeasure | The upper 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 | 0.6 Brazil64.6South Sudanmiddle 6.0 | 95 | 0 | |
Women aged 15 and over (%)female_adultsMeasure | The share of women aged 15 and over who are severely food insecure, in %, measured on individuals rather than households; empty where FAO publishes it only as below 0.5. | Number · up to 1 decimal | 0.5 Japan62.9South Sudanmiddle 4.9 | 95 | 1 | |
Men aged 15 and over (%)male_adultsMeasure | The share of men aged 15 and over who are severely food insecure, in %, measured on individuals rather than households; empty where FAO publishes it only as below 0.5. | Number · up to 1 decimal | 0.52 share it62.9South Sudanmiddle 4.7 | 86 | 1 | |
People in severe food insecurity (millions)people_millionsMeasure | The number of people in 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 | 0.15 share it61.4 Nigeriamiddle 1.1 | 49 | 26 |
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.
03151 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 | 13 | 13 | 16 | 19 | 24 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 23 | 24 |
| Europe | 36 | 35 | 35 | 32 | 33 | 35 | 36 | 36 | 35 | 35 |
| Oceania | 2 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 5 |
| All | 94 | 94 | 107 | 111 | 124 | 133 | 136 | 140 | 125 | 125 |
Who joined and who left
- 2024
+ Kyrgyzstan
+ Paraguay
− Antigua and Barbuda
− Comoros - 2023
+ United Arab Emirates
− Bahamas
− Barbados
− Central African Republic
− Djibouti
− Dominica
− Fiji
− Guinea-Bissau
− Kazakhstan− Kyrgyzstan
− Maldives
− Nauru
− Poland− Paraguay
− São Tomé and Príncipe
− Suriname
− Tonga - 2022
+ Azerbaijan
+ Burundi
+ Mongolia
+ Palau
+ Trinidad and Tobago
− Timor-Leste - 2021+ Antigua and Barbuda
+ Bolivia
+ Switzerland
+ Guyana+ Kazakhstan
− Saint Kitts and Nevis
− Vanuatu - 2020+ Bahamas+ Barbados+ Central African Republic+ Comoros+ Djibouti+ Dominica+ Nauru+ Poland+ São Tomé and Príncipe+ Suriname
+ Slovenia
+ Eswatini
− Armenia
− Papua New Guinea
− Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - 2019
+ Angola
+ Belgium
+ Belize
+ DR Congo
+ Czechia+ Fiji
+ Haiti
+ South Korea
+ Laos
+ Liberia+ Maldives
+ Myanmar+ Timor-Leste+ Tonga
+ Vietnam− Switzerland
− Indonesia - 2018
+ Kiribati+ Saint Kitts and Nevis
+ Lebanon
+ Lesotho
+ Madagascar
+ Philippines
+ Thailand
+ Uruguay+ Vanuatu
+ South Africa− Liberia
− Saint Lucia− Poland
− Russia− Slovenia
− Seychelles - 2017+ Armenia
+ Burkina Faso
+ Cabo Verde+ Guinea-Bissau
+ Grenada+ Japan+ Kyrgyzstan
+ Mali
+ Niger+ Papua New Guinea+ South Sudan+ Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
+ Samoa
Not in this dataset · 74 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
Bangladesh
Belarus
Bermuda
Bhutan
British Virgin Islands
Brunei
Cayman IslandsChannel Islands
China
Cook Islands
Cuba
Curaçao
Cyprus
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Faroe Islands
French Polynesia
Gabon
Gibraltar
Greenland
Guam
Guinea
Hong Kong
India
Iraq
Isle of Man
Italy
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
Venezuela
Yemen04Provenance
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 Severe Food Insecurity 2024
3 · Read by this site
October 13, 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 severe-food-insecurity-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv5 · Used on
Its statistic page, and every profile it measures
/statistics/severe-food-insecurityA key for Health & Wellbeing in the Country Index.
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. A country absent from an edition was either not surveyed, or measured and found below half a percent.
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 Severe Food Insecurity, via Nations Inquiry.
Cite this dataset
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, 2015–2024 [data set]. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/severe-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.
06Questions
Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity: questions and answers
What is the Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity?
Severe food insecurity is the share of people who ran out of food, or went a whole day without eating, at some point in the year. The FAO gets it by asking them — the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, SDG indicator 2.1.2 — which makes it the human counterpart to its supply-based undernourishment estimate.
Which years of the Prevalence of 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.