Global hunger falls for third straight year, but Africa remains hardest hit – UN
KAMPALA, July 25, 2026 – Global hunger declined for the third consecutive year in 2025, but progress remains slow and uneven, with Africa now accounting for the highest number of hungry people, according to a new United Nations report.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 [SOFI 2026] report, released on Tuesday by five UN agencies, estimates that 7.8 per cent of the world’s population experienced hunger in 2025, down from 8.1 per cent in 2024 and 8.6 per cent in 2022.
The report says about 645 million people were affected by hunger last year, a reduction of nearly 14 million compared with 2024 and 43 million compared with 2022, signalling a gradual recovery from recent global food crises.
Despite the improvement, the UN warns that progress is fragile and remains insufficient to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2, which aims to end hunger by 2030.
While Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean have continued to register steady gains, Africa remains the region most affected by hunger. The continent is now home to an estimated 309 million hungry people, surpassing Asia’s 292 million, largely because of rapid population growth.
Although the proportion of Africans experiencing hunger fell slightly from 20.3 per cent in 2024 to 20.0 per cent in 2025, more than half of the continent’s population – 56.6 per cent – continued to face moderate or severe food insecurity.
Globally, around 2.1 billion people, or 25.8 per cent of the world’s population, experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025, meaning they were forced at times to reduce either the quality or quantity of their food. That represents nearly 86 million fewer people than in 2024, although food insecurity remains above pre-pandemic levels.
The report also highlights persistent inequalities, noting that women continue to experience higher levels of food insecurity than men, while rural populations remain more vulnerable than those living in urban areas.
Looking ahead, the UN warns that the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, coupled with rising food inflation driven by higher energy and fertiliser prices, could slow global progress. Between 510 million and 520 million people are projected to remain undernourished by 2030, compared with an earlier projection of 503 million before the conflict.
The report further cautions that extreme weather events, including potential El Niño conditions in 2026 and 2027, as well as declining international development assistance and humanitarian funding, could further undermine efforts to eradicate hunger.
The report also paints a worrying picture of global nutrition. Progress in reducing child stunting, wasting, low birthweight and childhood overweight remains too slow to meet international targets, while anaemia among women of reproductive age continues to worsen.
Adult obesity has also increased steadily, rising from 12.1 per cent in 2012 to 16.2 per cent in 2024. Meanwhile, only 30.8 per cent of children aged between six and 23 months consume a minimally diverse diet, and an estimated 150 million children under five remain stunted.
The cost of healthy eating also continues to rise. In 2025, the average global cost of a healthy diet increased to 4.28 purchasing power parity [PPP] dollars per person per day, compared with 3.44 PPP dollars in 2021.
Although the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet fell from 2.97 billion in 2021 to 2.69 billion in 2025, affordability deteriorated sharply in Africa, where two-thirds of the population could not afford nutritious food.
The report notes that inefficiencies across food value chains, particularly in processing, transport and wholesale distribution, account for up to three-quarters of the price consumers pay for food. It calls for greater investment in infrastructure, irrigation, cold storage, research and development, alongside policy reforms to lower the cost of nutritious foods.
Launching the report, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said the findings demonstrated that progress was achievable but required stronger political commitment and sustained investment.
“Ending hunger and making healthy diets affordable requires political commitment, sustained investment and enabling policies,” he said.
The report was jointly produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO], the International Fund for Agricultural Development [IFAD], the United Nations Children’s Fund [UNICEF], the World Food Programme [WFP] and the World Health Organization [WHO].
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