Context: Recently, the Asia and the Pacific Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2020: Maternal and Child Diets at the Heart of Improving Nutrition report was released.

• The report was jointly published by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP), World Health Organisation (WHO).
• According to the report around 3 billion people across the world cannot afford a healthy diet and 1.9 billion of them are in the Asia-Pacific region.

About the report

• The report provides an update on progress towards the 2030 targets (SDGs) at the regional and country level.

Parameters

• Undernourishment
• Food insecurity
• Childhood stunting
• Wasting and overweight
• Adult overweight
• Child minimum acceptable diet
• Exclusive and continued breastfeeding
• Anaemia in women and children.  

Highlights

• Progress on food security and nutrition has slowed, and the Asia and Pacific region is not on track to achieving 2030 targets.
• About 350.6 million people in the Asia and Pacific region are estimated to have been undernourished in 2019. (51 percent of the global total).
• An estimated 74.5 million children under five years of age were stunted and a total of 31.5 million were wasted in the Asia and Pacific region.
• The majority of these children in the region live in Southern Asia with 55.9 million stunted and 25.2 million wasted children.
• Estimates predict a 14.3 percent increase in the prevalence of moderate or severe wasting among children under 5 years of age due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• In India, just 42 per cent of children aged 6-23 months are fed the required number of times per day.
• Anaemia in children under five remains a public health challenge in India and some of its neighbours.