Published by five specialized United Nations agencies and compiled in the landmark study The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2025, the findings show that roughly 8.2 percent of the world’s population—representing about 673 million people—suffered from hunger in 2024. While this global proportion represents a notable decline from 8.7 percent in 2022 and 8.5 percent in 2023, international leaders emphasize that recovery remains deeply fractured, leaving vulnerable populations behind in specific geographic pockets.
The report, spearheaded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Health Organization (WHO), details the ongoing impacts of post-pandemic economic shocks, geopolitical conflicts, and intensifying climate anomalies on international food systems.
"While it is encouraging to see a decrease in the global hunger rate, we must recognize that progress is uneven," said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu in a press release accompanying the report. "SOFI 2025 serves as a critical reminder that we need to intensify efforts to ensure that everyone has access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food. To achieve this, we must work collaboratively and innovatively with governments, organizations, and communities to address the specific challenges faced by vulnerable populations, especially in regions where hunger remains persistent."
According to the data, between 638 million and 720 million people faced chronic hunger last year. This range represents a decrease of approximately 15 million people compared to 2023 estimates and a drop of 22 million from 2022 figures.
Regional divides, however, highlight a stark disparity in how different parts of the world are recovering from a confluence of global economic pressures. Asia experienced a substantial improvement, with the proportion of undernourished individuals falling to 6.7 percent, down from 7.9 percent two years earlier. Similarly, Latin America and the Caribbean saw continued recovery, with undernourishment rates dropping to 5.1 percent—affecting 34 million people—in 2024, following a peak of 6.1 percent recorded in 2020.
In sharp contrast, the positive global trajectory stands in stark opposition to the steady rise of hunger across Africa and western Asia, where numerous nations remain mired in prolonged food crises and regional conflicts. The proportion of the population facing hunger in Africa surpassed 20 percent in 2024, directly impacting 307 million people. Meanwhile, western Asia saw an estimated 12.7 percent of its population—amounting to more than 39 million individuals—face hunger over the same period.
Beyond severe hunger, broader measures of food accessibility also reflect persistent global vulnerabilities. The percentage of the global population experiencing "moderate or severe food insecurity"—defined as individuals facing constraints on adequate food access for parts of the year—decreated slightly to 28 percent in 2024. This translates to roughly 2.3 billion people worldwide, down marginally from 28.4 percent in 2023.
"In recent years, the world has made good progress in reducing stunting and supporting exclusive breastfeeding, but there is still much to be done to relieve millions of people from the burdens of food insecurity and malnutrition," said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Despite incremental improvements in certain regions, current projections underscore the monumental challenge the international community faces in meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of achieving Zero Hunger by 2030. The report estimates that 512 million people could still experience chronic undernourishment by the end of the decade, with nearly 60 percent of those individuals residing in Africa.
The authors of the SOFI 2025 report closely examined the lingering consequences of the severe food price surge that shook global markets between 2021 and 2023. That unprecedented wave of food price inflation was driven by a complex mix of factors, including global policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine, and an increasing frequency of extreme weather events sweeping across agricultural breadbaskets worldwide. These shocks collectively crippled the post-2020 recovery of global food security and nutrition.
Low-income nations bore the heaviest burden of these compounding crises. While median global food price inflation rose from a modest 2.3 percent in December 2020 to a peak of 13.6 percent in early 2023, low-income countries experienced an even more dramatic spike, with inflation rates climbing as high as 30 percent in May 2023.
These soaring costs directly impacted families’ ability to maintain a basic standard of nutrition. On a global scale, the total number of people unable to afford a healthy diet fell to 2.6 billion last year, down from 2.76 billion in 2019. However, this global average masks a deteriorating reality in economically disadvantaged regions.
In low-income countries, the number of people who could not afford a healthy diet rose to 545 million last year, an increase from 464 million five years earlier. In lower-middle-income nations, excluding India, that figure climbed from 791 million to 869 million over the same timeframe. Altogether, the data indicates that in low-income nations, approximately 544.7 million people—or 72 percent of the total population—were priced out of a healthy diet in 2024.
UN agency leaders argue that reversing these troubling trends requires immediate, targeted intervention and sustained capital allocation toward agricultural infrastructure, particularly in the developing world.
"In times of rising food prices and disrupted global value chains, we must step up our investments in rural and agricultural transformation," said IFAD President Alvaro Lario. "These investments are not only essential for ensuring food and nutrition security—they are also critical for global stability."
To combat ongoing inflationary pressures and stabilize volatile food markets, the report outlines a comprehensive set of policy recommendations. These include the implementation of transparent and credible monetary policies designed to contain inflation, alongside time-bound and targeted fiscal measures such as social protection programs to shield vulnerable households from market shocks. Furthermore, the report calls for strategic investments in agrifood research and development, improved market information systems to boost resilience and productivity, and the modernization of transportation and production infrastructure.
The human cost of this ongoing global food crisis is disproportionately borne by the youngest populations. UNICEF estimates that more than 190 million children under the age of five are currently affected by undernutrition, a condition that threatens lifelong physical and mental development and undermines human capital on a global scale.
"Every child deserves the chance to grow and thrive. Yet over 190 million children under the age of 5 are affected by undernutrition, which can have negative consequences for their physical and mental development," said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. "This robs them of the chance to live to their fullest potential."
Russell stressed that collaborative action between governments, the private sector, and local communities is vital to guarantee that vulnerable families can secure affordable, nutrient-rich food. This approach includes fortifying existing social protection programs and educating parents on utilizing locally produced nutritious foods, alongside championing breastfeeding as a cornerstone for infant health.
As the international community digests the findings of the 2025 report, the message from the United Nations agencies remains clear: while overall hunger rates are moving in the right direction, the deeply entrenched crises in Africa and western Asia, combined with affordability gaps in low-income nations, demand an urgent, coordinated, and heavily funded global response.
