The world has made uneven but steady progress in reducing overall levels of hunger during the past two decades, new research shows. At the same time, more countries now have higher levels of hunger than in 2010, and more than 40 nations will miss one of the U.N.'s primary goals: eliminating world hunger by 2030, the report says.

Conflict, inequality and the effects of climate change are leading to consistently high levels of hunger and food insecurity, according to the 2019 Global Hunger Index , a tool annually updated that measures hunger globally, by region and by countries.

"Hunger persists in many countries, and in some instances progress is even being reversed," say the authors of this year's hunger index report .

The index calculates hunger scores by determining the values of four indicators: undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting and child mortality. It ranks 117 countries and categorizes them into five groups: those achieving low levels of concern score below 9.9 points; the "moderate" category includes scores between 10 and 19.99; the "serious" category's scores range from 20 to 34.9; "alarming" scores run from 35 to 49.9; and "extremely alarming" scores go above 50.

Data used to develop the index comes from the U.N. and other multilateral agencies.

Hunger and undernutrition are now considered a global problem at the cusp of "moderate" and "serious". The current global hunger and undernutrition level is 20, down 9 points from the 29 score reported in 2000, which marked hunger as a "serious" concern. Despite the general progress, however, multiple countries have higher hunger levels now than in 2010, and around 45 countries will fail to reach the zero hunger target by 2030.

"The number of people who are undernourished actually rose from 785 million in 2015 to 822 million in 2018," say the authors of the index report . "Nine countries in the GHI in the moderate, serious, alarming, or extremely alarming categories have higher scores today than in 2010, including the Central African Republic, Madagascar, and Yemen."

Regionally, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa reported the highest levels of world hunger, with a score of 29.3 and 28.4, respectively. In contrast, Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Latin America and the Caribbean, East and Southeast Asia, and the Near East and North Africa scored from 6.6. to 13.3, placing these regions in the low to moderate categories.

The Central African Republic is also the only country reporting an "extremely" alarming score , with a score above 53, followed by Yemen and Chad. Although mortality rates for children under 5 have slowly dropped since the year 2000, the country has seen drastic increases in general undernourishment. The Central African Republic also saw spikes in the stunting and child wasting criteria.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Uruguay reported the lowest levels of hunger and undernourishment. With a score below 5, the Latin American nation has consistently improved since 2000, with the biggest progress seen in its child stunting levels. Prevalence of child wasting has slightly increased since 2010. Uruguay is followed closely by Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania, Montenegro, Lithuania, Latvia, Kuwait, Estonia, Cuba, Croatia, Costa Rica, Chile, Bulgaria and Bosnia & Herzegovina, all scoring below 5 points.

The index did not assess hunger in the United States or other leading economies, focusing instead on middle-income and developing countries. The index is annually co-produced by the Irish humanitarian agency Concern Worldwide, and the German nonprofit aid organization Welthungerhlife (German for "World Hunger Aid").