As you read this, 42.3 million people around the world stand on the brink of famine, as conflict, climate change and global economic instability combine to create hunger crises in countries across the globe. Sudan is becoming the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, while other hard-hit hotspots include Gaza, Chad, South Sudan and Haiti.
But how do we define famine, and what stages are there before people reach such a catastrophic level of hunger?
The global standard for measuring food insecurity, what we might see as the “Richter scale” of hunger, is the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). Here's a closer look at the different stages of hunger it defines:
In a situation of no or minimal acute food insecurity, people are able to meet their essential food and non-food needs without engaging in atypical and unsustainable strategies to access food and income. In this phase, less than 5 percent of the population is malnourished and people have a stable income. There is consistent quantity and quality of food for most people, more than 2,100 calories per person per day.
