The global fight against hunger has seen a sustained, albeit slow, reduction for the third consecutive year, with 7.8 percent of the world’s population facing hunger in 2025. This represents a decrease from 8.1 percent in 2024 and 8.6 percent in 2022, according to the landmark "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026" (SOFI 2026) report. Released on Tuesday by five United Nations specialized agencies, the report underscores that while progress is demonstrable, it remains fragile, unevenly distributed, and insufficient to meet the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030.
In 2025, an estimated 645 million people experienced hunger, marking a reduction of nearly 14 million compared to the previous year and 43 million since 2022. This downward trend offers a glimmer of hope, demonstrating that concerted efforts can yield positive results in addressing one of humanity’s most pressing challenges. However, the nuanced data within the SOFI 2026 report paints a complex picture, highlighting significant regional disparities and persistent vulnerabilities.
Uneven Progress Across Continents: Africa Faces Mounting Challenges
Despite global improvements, the recovery from food insecurity is far from uniform. Asia, alongside Latin America and the Caribbean, has consistently shown steady progress in recent years. Conversely, Africa now accounts for the largest absolute number of hungry individuals, with approximately 309 million people facing hunger in 2025, surpassing Asia’s 292 million. While Africa’s previously escalating hunger trend appears to be stabilizing, with the proportion of its population affected decreasing marginally from 20.3 percent in 2024 to 20.0 percent in 2025, the continent grapples with the highest number of hungry people in real terms amidst a rapidly expanding population. This demographic reality places immense pressure on food systems and humanitarian efforts.
The broader measure of food insecurity, which encompasses individuals experiencing moderate or severe lack of access to adequate food, tells a similar story of uneven progress. In 2025, an estimated 25.8 percent of the global population, translating to around 2.1 billion people, faced moderate or severe food insecurity. This indicates that these individuals were at times compelled to compromise on the quality or quantity of food they consumed. While this figure represents a welcome decrease from 27.1 percent in 2024 and 28.7 percent in 2020 – equivalent to nearly 86 million fewer people than in 2024 and 135 million fewer than in 2020 – it remains above pre-pandemic levels, underscoring the lingering impact of global shocks.
Regional disparities in food insecurity are particularly stark. Over half of Africa’s population, at 56.6 percent, experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025. This stands in sharp contrast to Asia (20.3 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (22.9 percent), and Northern America and Europe (8.7 percent). Furthermore, food insecurity continues to be more prevalent in rural areas compared to peri-urban and urban settings. Women also remain disproportionately affected, although the gender gap in food insecurity showed a slight narrowing in 2025.
Impact of the Middle East Conflict on Hunger Projections
The SOFI 2026 report also provides updated hunger projections for the next five years, critically incorporating the impact of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The report estimates that depending on the duration and severity of the crisis’s impact on food inflation, driven by escalating energy and fertilizer prices, the number of people facing hunger in 2030 could range from 510 to 520 million. This projection is higher than the pre-conflict scenario’s lower estimate of 503 million, although the global number of undernourished people is still expected to decrease by 20 percent overall.
However, these projections are subject to significant uncertainties. Other potential disruptors, such as the anticipated effects of extreme weather events like El Niño in 2026 and 2027, are not factored into these calculations and could further exacerbate the global hunger situation. The confluence of conflict, climate volatility, and economic shocks presents a formidable challenge to achieving SDG 2.
The joint authors of the report – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO) – issue a stern warning. The 2026 Middle East conflict, coupled with extreme weather events and a concerning reduction in official development assistance and humanitarian funding, threatens to undermine the substantial progress made to date in eradicating global hunger.
Stalled Progress on Global Nutrition Targets
Beyond the headline figures on hunger, the SOFI 2026 report reveals a deeply concerning trend: global progress on maternal and child nutrition remains insufficient to meet international commitments, including the 2030 nutrition targets. Indicators such as child stunting, wasting, overweight, low birthweight, and exclusive breastfeeding are showing only marginal improvements. The pace of progress is simply too slow to achieve the set goals.
Adding to this grim picture, anaemia among women aged 15 to 49 years is worsening globally. Concurrently, the prevalence of adult obesity continues its steady ascent, increasing from 12.1 percent in 2012 to 16.2 percent in 2024. This trajectory directly contradicts the target of halting the rise in obesity by 2025. Furthermore, a significant proportion of children under five years of age, an estimated 150 million, remain stunted, and only 30.8 percent of children aged 6 to 23 months worldwide consume a minimally diverse diet.
Regional variations are again evident in nutrition outcomes. While the prevalence of child stunting is declining in Africa and Asia is on track to meet the 2030 target, exclusive breastfeeding rates are improving across most regions with available data. However, nearly all regions are witnessing widening gaps in addressing anaemia among women, and childhood overweight is escalating at an alarming rate in Oceania.
The Prohibitive Cost of a Healthy Diet
A critical focus of this year’s SOFI report is the cost of a healthy diet, defined as the average minimum expenditure required to procure locally available foods that meet energy and most nutrient requirements. According to FAO and WHO, a healthy diet is characterized by adequacy, balance, diversity, and moderation.
The report underscores that the prohibitive cost of healthy diets remains a major impediment to achieving SDG 2 (Zero Hunger). It also cautions that simply lowering these costs will not, in isolation, guarantee improved dietary quality and nutrition outcomes.
In 2025, the average global cost of a healthy diet rose to 4.28 purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars per person per day, an increase from 3.44 PPP dollars in 2021 and 2.94 PPP dollars in 2017. Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the highest costs, at 4.91 PPP dollars per person per day. While the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet has declined globally, from 2.97 billion (37.4 percent of the world population) in 2021 to 2.69 billion (32.7 percent) in 2025, this trend masks significant regional disparities.
Affordability of a healthy diet has worsened markedly in Africa, where 66.6 percent of the population could not afford one in 2025. This figure is more than double the levels observed in Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The cost of healthy diets varies significantly across regions, largely due to structural differences in agrifood systems. Animal source foods, fruits, and vegetables constitute the largest share of these costs, while starchy staples contribute relatively little. Animal source foods are the primary driver of healthy diet costs in Africa, whereas vegetables represent the largest component in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Addressing Structural Cost Drivers in Food Value Chains
Food value chains play a pivotal role in determining prices. Post-farmgate activities account for a substantial 70 to 75 percent of what consumers ultimately pay, with up to 40 percent of total costs arising from processing, logistics, and wholesale. Enhancing efficiency in these segments is therefore crucial, particularly for reducing the cost of perishable, nutrient-rich foods that are vital for healthy diets.
The report advocates for context-specific policy responses to reduce the cost of healthy diets. These responses should focus on expanding the supply of nutritious foods while simultaneously lowering structural costs across agrifood value chains. This necessitates strategic investments in infrastructure, research and development, irrigation, and cold chains. Furthermore, reforms in subsidy regimes, trade facilitation, and regulatory frameworks are essential.
Targeted interventions aimed at boosting productivity, minimizing food losses, and promoting sustainable agricultural practices can offer a multi-faceted solution. Such initiatives can simultaneously improve nutrition outcomes, bolster resilience against shocks, and contribute to achieving climate goals. The report concludes with a powerful assertion: "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."
Official Responses and Calls for Action
The heads of the UN agencies involved in the report issued strong statements emphasizing the urgency of the situation and the path forward.
QU Dongyu, Director-General of the FAO, stated: "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 disasters 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."
Alvaro Lario, President of IFAD, highlighted the financial barrier: "SOFI tells us that the cost of a healthy diet continues to rise and that nearly 2.7 billion people may still be unable to afford a healthy diet. Resilient value chains must be a central part of the answer. Our task now is to turn the evidence SOFI provides into investment – and to do so through partnership. Together, we can build the value chains, market systems and rural economies that make healthy food affordable for all."
Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF, emphasized the impact on children: "Every child deserves the chance to grow and develop to their full potential, and this starts with access to nutritious, affordable food. This report is a stark reminder that food systems fail millions of children and families. Food, health, education and social protection must go hand in hand to protect the most vulnerable children and women from global shocks."
Carl Skau, Acting Executive Director of WFP, drew attention to the human cost: "Behind every number in this report is a family counting the cost of food. Conflict and climate shocks push them further beyond their means. We must continue working with partner agencies, governments and communities to build food systems that hold up under shock, so families can afford nutritious diets, even in times of crisis. We now need sustained investment to match the scale of the challenge."
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, stressed the link between diet and health: "While we welcome the clear progress we have made in reducing hunger, a healthy diet still remains unaffordable for one in three people globally. Obesity is rising and progress on maternal and child nutrition is stalling. But we know what works: policies that make healthy food the easy choice, promoting breastfeeding, front-of-pack labelling, taxing unhealthy products, and protecting children from harmful marketing. Healthy diets are not a luxury – they are the foundation of health and must be within everyone’s reach."
The SOFI 2026 report serves as a critical barometer, measuring the world’s progress towards a hunger-free and well-nourished future. While acknowledging the commendable steps taken, the findings underscore the immense and urgent work that lies ahead. Addressing the multifaceted challenges of conflict, climate change, economic instability, and systemic inequities within food systems will require unprecedented global cooperation, sustained investment, and bold policy action to ensure that a healthy diet becomes a reality for all, not a privilege for a few.
