U.N. agencies warn conflicts, climate shocks and aid cuts threaten gains as healthy diets remain out of reach for one in three people
By Bunmi Yekini
Global hunger declined for a third consecutive year in 2025, but progress remains too slow and uneven to meet the U.N.’s goal of ending hunger by 2030, with Africa now home to the world’s largest hungry population, according to a report released on Tuesday by five United Nations agencies.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 (SOFI) report estimated that 7.8% of the world’s population, or about 645 million people, experienced hunger in 2025, down from 8.1% in 2024 and 8.6% in 2022.
The decline represents nearly 14 million fewer hungry people than a year earlier and 43 million fewer than in 2022, but the agencies warned that conflicts, extreme weather and shrinking international aid threaten to reverse recent gains.
Despite the global improvement, Africa has overtaken Asia as the region with the highest number of undernourished people, with about 309 million people facing hunger in 2025, compared with 292 million in Asia.
Although the proportion of Africans experiencing hunger edged down to 20.0% from 20.3% a year earlier, rapid population growth meant the continent now accounts for the largest share of the world’s hungry people.
The report, jointly produced 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), said around 2.1 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025.
While that marked an improvement from previous years, more than half of Africa’s population continued to struggle with uncertain access to adequate food, compared with about one-fifth of people in Asia.
The agencies also warned that the conflict in the Middle East, alongside reductions in international development and humanitarian funding, could slow further progress. They projected that between 510 million and 520 million people could still face hunger by 2030, above pre-conflict projections.
The report found that progress in tackling malnutrition also remained off track. Child stunting, wasting and low birthweight showed only modest improvements, while anaemia among women of reproductive age continued to worsen and adult obesity increased.
The cost of eating a healthy diet also continued to rise, reaching an average of 4.28 purchasing power parity dollars per person per day in 2025, up from 3.44 PPP dollars in 2021.
Although the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet fell to 2.69 billion globally, the report said affordability deteriorated in Africa, where two-thirds of the population could not afford nutritious food.
“Progress is possible, but we must move faster,” FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said.
“Ending hunger and making healthy diets affordable requires political commitment, sustained investment and enabling policies.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said healthy diets remained beyond the reach of one in three people worldwide despite recent progress in reducing hunger.
“Healthy diets are not a luxury – they are the foundation of health and must be within everyone’s reach,” he said.
The agencies called for greater investment in resilient food systems, agricultural infrastructure, research, irrigation, cold-chain logistics and policies that lower the cost of nutritious foods while strengthening food security in the face of climate shocks and conflict.