Africa is now home to an estimated 309 million hungry people, a new United Nations report has revealed, even as global hunger recorded its third consecutive year of decline. The report added that nearly 67 per cent of the continent’s population still cannot afford a healthy diet.
It warned that a combination of conflicts, climate-related shocks and shrinking humanitarian support could push as many as 520 million people into hunger by 2030, highlighting deepening regional disparities despite modest gains worldwide.
The 2026 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report was released yesterday by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
According to the report, about 645 million people, or 7.8 per cent of the global population, experienced hunger in 2025. That figure was down from 8.1 per cent in 2024 and 8.6 per cent in 2022, translating to nearly 14 million fewer hungry people than in the previous year.
However, the progress was uneven. Although the share of Africans facing hunger dipped from 20.3 per cent in 2024 to 20.0 per cent in 2025, rapid population growth pushed the continent’s total number of hungry people above Asia’s 292 million, giving Africa the highest figure in absolute terms.
The report also found that some 2.1 billion people, or 25.8 per cent of the world’s population, faced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025, meaning they were at times forced to compromise on the quality or quantity of the food they ate. Africa remained the worst affected, with 56.6 per cent of its population food insecure.
Women and people in rural communities, the UN agencies noted, continued to bear a disproportionate share of the burden.
The agencies cautioned that the recent gains could easily be reversed by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, weather-related shocks and declining humanitarian and development funding, projecting that “between 510 million and 520 million people could still be facing hunger by 2030” should current food inflation persist.
Source: The Guardian.
Comments 0