Food systems face numerous multidimensional threats, including conflicts, climate change and price and supply shocks. These challenges hinder progress in human health and security, poverty, inequality, and development efforts, while worsening environmental degradation. Several structural issues in the region compound these challenges, such as growing instability in food systems, demographic shifts including ageing farmers, market concentration, barriers to adopting farmer-friendly technologies, limited access to finance, erosion of traditional knowledge and rapid urbanization affecting fragile urban food systems.

The profile for SDG 2 was developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) with input from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN WOMEN), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).