After a decade of steady decline, the number of people suffering from chronic hunger in the world has slowly increased for several years in a row, underscoring the immense challenge of ending hunger by 2030. Already prior to 2020, episodes of elevated trade tensions and tightening financial conditions clouded global economic prospects. Evidence showed that hunger had been on the rise for many of the countries where economic growth slowed down. The outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic in early 2020 contributed to the further deterioration of the global food security situation. As the world was beginning to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the impacts of the war in Ukraine rattled already volatile food and energy markets, magnifying the effects of other factors and posing new challenges for global food security. The extent of the impact of economic events upon people’s access to food depends on poverty and inequality levels, but also on access to basic services and assets. Where inequality is greater, economic shocks have a disproportionate effect on food security and nutrition for lower-income populations. Inequality increases the likelihood of experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity. Income and wealth inequalities are also closely associated with undernutrition, while more complex inequality patterns are associated with obesity. The risk that the high level in hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition will continue is particularly high today, considering the modest level of global economic growth forecast for 2024 and persisting conflicts, crisis, and climate variability and extremes. This paper has been assembled by FAO at the request of the G20 Presidency of Brazil, to inform the G20 deliberations on the interconnected issues of hunger and poverty throughout 2024. It presents an overview of hunger across regions; forecasts for the global cereal supply to 2023/24 as well as to 2032; and identifies investment needs in agrifood systems. In doing so, it highlights some key areas for intervention to bring the world closer to Zero Hunger by 2030.