The Index issued in 2020 includes (107) States disaggregated by the values of the indicators mentioned previously. The Index did not include countries for which data were not available, many high-income countries, countries with small populations, and non-independent regions.
Overall, hunger worldwide is at a moderate level by Index, yet too many people continue to suffer from hunger and undernourishment: About 690 million people are undernourished, about 144 million children are diagnosed with Dwarfism, a sign of chronic undernourishment, and 47 million children are diagnosed with Cachexia, a sign of acute undernourishment. In 2018, 5.3 million children died before their fifth birthday, due to undernourishment.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic downturn, as well as widespread Desert locust outbreaks in the Horn of Africa and other crises, such as conflict hunger, extreme weather events, and economic shocks, caused further hunger index crises.
