Africa now world’s hunger capital, as global hunger falls for third year

…1 in 5 Africans still goes hungry

…UN warns healthy diets remain beyond reach for billions

By Chioma Obinna

Global hunger declined for the third consecutive year in 2025, but Africa has emerged as the epicentre of the world’s food crisis, with the continent now accounting for the highest number of hungry people globally, a new United Nations report has revealed.

The 2026 edition of “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI)”, released on Tuesday by five UN agencies, revealed that while global hunger dropped to 7.8 per cent of the world’s population in 2025 from 8.1 per cent in 2024, Africa is now home to about 309 million hungry people, surpassing Asia’s 292 million. 

The report paints a troubling picture for the continent, showing that one in every five Africans experienced hunger in 2025, while more than half of the population faced moderate or severe food insecurity.

Although the global number of hungry people fell by nearly 14 million compared to 2024 and by 43 million since 2022, the UN warned that progress remains fragile and far too slow to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of ending hunger by 2030. 

The report, jointly produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNICEF, World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO), estimates that about 645 million people worldwide went hungry in 2025.

Beyond hunger, the agencies said access to nutritious food remains a major global challenge.

An estimated 2.1 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025, while nearly 2.7 billion people, almost one in three globally, could not afford a healthy diet. In Africa, the situation is even more severe, with 66.6 per cent of the population unable to afford healthy food.  

The report also warned that child and maternal nutrition indicators remain off track globally.

Around 150 million children under five are still stunted, while only 30.8 per cent of children aged six to 23 months receive a minimally diverse diet. Anaemia among women of reproductive age continues to worsen, and adult obesity has risen steadily from 12.1 per cent in 2012 to 16.2 per cent in 2024. 

The agencies cautioned that conflict in the Middle East, extreme weather events, shrinking humanitarian funding and reductions in official development assistance could reverse recent gains and leave between 510 million and 520 million people hungry by 2030. 

Commenting on the findings, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said the world has demonstrated that progress is achievable but must act faster.

“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.” 

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that while hunger is declining, healthy diets remain unaffordable for millions.

“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,” Tedros said. 

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell described the findings as a reminder that millions of children continue to suffer because food systems are failing vulnerable families.

She stressed that nutrition, healthcare, education and social protection must work together to protect children and women from growing global shocks. 

The report called for greater investment in food systems, including improved infrastructure, irrigation, cold-chain facilities, research, trade reforms and policies that reduce the cost of nutritious foods while strengthening resilience to climate change and economic shocks.

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