In 2023, 735 million individuals worldwide experienced hunger, and 258 million people across 58 countries and territories faced acute food insecurity at crisis or worse levels. With 60% of them comprising women, the gender gap in food insecurity continues to widen.
Many countries have faced democratic backsliding or autocratization, especially in the past 30 years. With a staggering 72 percent of the world population living in autocracies (according to the V-Dem 2023 report), we need more evidence to better understand what works to support democracy and freedom in backsliding contexts to reverse this trend. To support this effort towards evidence-informed decision-making in democracy programming, 3ie has gathered existing findings in an evidence gap map and rapid evidence assessment (REA), with support from the UK government's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
In recent years, international observers such as the V-Dem Institute have highlighted an alarming crisis of democracy with a decline in competitive elections, political participation and public accountability. For the first time in two decades, the Institute’s 2023 Democracy Report found more closed autocracies than liberal democracies in the world.
