Slight Decrease in Global Hunger as Inequalities Widen, says UN Interagency Report

© CIAT/Georgina Smith A farmer in Kenya holds a seedling of a new bean variety.

 

An interagency group from the UN released the flagship 2025 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report on Monday, estimating a global, yet uneven, decline in hunger since 2022.

 

The report estimates 8.2 per cent of the global population (673 million individuals) experienced hunger in 2024, down from 8.5 per cent in 2023 and 8.7 per cent in 2022.

Latin America and Asia saw improvements, with the prevalence of undernourishment falling by 1.2 percent in Asia and 1 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean between 2022 and 2024.

However, 20 per cent of the African population and 12.7 per cent of people in Western Asian face hunger, showing evidence of an unfortunately steady rise.

Of the projected 512 million people who could be chronically undernourished by 2030, almost 60 per cent will be in Africa.

Sustainable Development progress

Together, these figures and the report’s assessment of nutrition targets under the Sustainable Development Agenda underscore the immense challenge of achieving the global goal of Zero Hunger.

Among child nutrition indicators, the prevalence of stunting among under-fives declined 3.2 per cent from 2012 to 2024, but the proportion of children overweight or wasting remains largely unchanged.

Also notable was the increase in anaemia among women aged 15 to 49 and adult obesity.

Crucially, while global food insecurity declined only slightly from 2023 to 2024, 335 million more people were affected in 2024 than in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, and 683 million more than in 2015, when the Sustainable Development Agenda was adopted.

Covid-era food inflation

The report was published by five UN agencies: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO).

They noted that hunger and food security estimates remain above pre-pandemic levels due to a “perfect storm” of COVID-19 inflation, the war in Ukraine and climate shocks.

Speaking at the report’s preview on 22 July, FAO Chief Economist Máximo Torero Cullen highlighted the finding that fiscal and monetary policies during the COVID-19 pandemic boosted demand and inflation.

Combined with food and commodity trade restrictions linked to the war in Ukraine and ongoing climate shocks, these factors drove food inflation up dramatically, hindering the post-pandemic recovery in food security and nutrition.

This perfect storm hit low- and lower-middle-income countries especially hard, driving food inflation even higher than the already elevated global average.

As a result, although the number of people able to afford a healthy diet increased globally from 2019 to 2024 despite rising prices, it declined in low- and lower-middle-income countries, where prices rose even more sharply.

Recommendations and funding needs

The report recommends a combination of policy responses to fight global food price inflation. These include targeted fiscal measures to protect the most affected, credible and transparent monetary policies to keep inflation in check and strategic investments in agrifood systems.

The report and agency leaders also underscored that funding is desperately needed to address global challenges.

“Hunger remains at alarming levels, yet the funding needed to tackle it is falling,” stressed WFP Executive Director, Cindy McCain.

“This year, funding cuts of up to 40 percent mean that tens of millions of people will lose the vital lifeline we provide,” she added.

“While the small reduction in overall rates of food insecurity is welcome, the continued failure to provide critical aid to people in desperate need will soon wipe out these hard-won gains, sparking further instability in volatile regions of the world.”