Global hunger declined for a third consecutive year in 2025, according to a recent report by five United Nations specialized agencies, though officials warned the gains remain fragile, unevenly spread across regions, and too slow to meet the world’s 2030 target of ending hunger.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 (SOFI 2026), jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO), estimates that 7.8 percent of the global population faced hunger in 2025. That is down from 8.1 percent in 2024 and 8.6 percent in 2022, the agencies said.
In absolute terms, roughly 645 million people were affected by hunger in 2025 — about 14 million fewer than in 2024 and 43 million fewer than in 2022, according to the report.
Africa’s Burden Grows Even as Its Rate Improves
The agencies said recovery has been uneven across the globe. Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean have posted steady improvements in recent years. Africa’s situation is more complicated: the share of its population facing hunger edged down from 20.3 percent in 2024 to 20.0 percent in 2025, suggesting the continent’s previously worsening trend is beginning to stabilize.
Even so, the report found Africa is now home to about 309 million hungry people, more than the 292 million recorded in Asia — meaning Africa has the highest absolute number of people facing hunger of any region, a consequence of its rapidly growing population.
Food Insecurity Still Affects a Quarter of Humanity
Beyond outright hunger, the report tracked broader measures of food access. It estimated that 25.8 percent of the world’s population — about 2.1 billion people — experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025, meaning they were at times forced to eat less or lower-quality food. That figure is down from 27.1 percent in 2024 and 28.7 percent in 2020, representing roughly 86 million fewer people than the previous year, though still above pre-pandemic levels, the agencies said.
Regional gaps remain stark on this measure too. More than half of Africa’s population — 56.6 percent — faced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025, compared with 20.3 percent in Asia, 22.9 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 8.7 percent in Northern America and Europe. The report also noted that food insecurity remains more common in rural areas than in cities, and that women continue to be disproportionately affected, although the gender gap narrowed slightly last year.
Middle East Conflict Clouds the Outlook to 2030
The report’s authors updated their five-year hunger projections in light of the conflict in the Middle East. Depending on how long the crisis continues to push up food inflation — driven by higher energy and fertilizer prices — the agencies estimated that between 510 and 520 million people could still be facing hunger in 2030, compared with a pre-conflict projection of 503 million. Even under that scenario, the global number of undernourished people is still expected to fall by 20 percent by 2030, according to the report.
Other risks, including weather extremes such as an anticipated El Niño event in 2026 and 2027, were not factored into these projections and could further set back progress. They warned that the 2026 Middle East conflict, extreme weather, and cuts to official development assistance and humanitarian funding together threaten to undermine recent gains against hunger.
Child Nutrition and Obesity Trends Lag Behind Targets
UN found that progress on maternal and child nutrition also remains insufficient to meet international commitments for 2030. Indicators such as child stunting, wasting, overweight, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding are improving only marginally, it said. Meanwhile, anaemia among women aged 15 to 49 is worsening, and adult obesity has climbed steadily, from 12.1 percent in 2012 to 16.2 percent in 2024 — moving further from a global target to halt its rise by 2025.
According to the findings, only 30.8 percent of children aged 6 to 23 months worldwide consume a minimally diverse diet, and 150 million children under five remain stunted. Stunting is declining in Africa and on track to meet its 2030 target in Asia, and breastfeeding rates are improving across regions with available data. But the agencies said nearly all regions are seeing widening gaps in tackling anaemia in women, and child overweight is rising rapidly in Oceania.
The Rising Cost of a Healthy Diet
This year’s report devotes particular attention to the affordability of a healthy diet, defined by FAO and WHO as one that is adequate, balanced, diverse and moderate. The global average cost of a healthy diet rose to 4.28 purchasing-power-parity (PPP) dollars per person per day in 2025, up from 3.44 PPP dollars in 2021 and 2.94 PPP dollars in 2017, with Latin America and the Caribbean recording the highest cost at 4.91 PPP dollars, the report said.
Despite rising costs, the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet fell from 2.97 billion (37.4 percent of the global population) in 2021 to 2.69 billion (32.7 percent) in 2025, according to the agencies. That global improvement, however, masks a sharp regional divide: in Africa, affordability worsened, with 66.6 percent of the population unable to afford a healthy diet in 2025 — more than double the rate in Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Much of the cost burden is generated after food leaves the farm. Post-farmgate activities such as processing, logistics and wholesale account for 70 to 75 percent of what consumers ultimately pay, with up to 40 percent of total costs arising at that stage. The agencies said improving efficiency in these segments, alongside investment in infrastructure, irrigation, cold chains and research, along with reforms to subsidies and trade rules, would be critical to lowering costs, particularly for perishable, nutrient-rich foods.
Officials Call for Faster Action
The authors struck a note of cautious optimism about the path ahead. “The work that lies ahead over the years to 2030 is immense. However, a world in which a healthy diet is no longer out of reach for nearly one in three people is a world worth building,” the report states.
“The report shows that progress is possible, but we must move faster. Ending hunger and making healthy diets affordable requires political commitment, sustained investment and enabling policies. Recent crises – from natural disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic to man-made disaster like hotspots of conflicts, the war in Ukraine, the Gaza crisis, and the recent Strait of Hormuz disruption – have demonstrated both the resilience of agrifood systems and the need to strengthen them further to better serve the world’s most vulnerable people, farmers and consumers,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu.
The findings come from the SOFI 2026 report, jointly issued by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO.
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