The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026: Progress Fragile, Uneven, and Insufficient for 2030 Goals
The global fight against hunger has seen a welcome, albeit slow, decline for the third consecutive year, with 7.8 percent of the world’s population facing food scarcity in 2025. This marks a significant reduction from 8.6 percent in 2022, translating to approximately 645 million people affected by hunger last year, nearly 14 million fewer than in 2024 and 43 million fewer than in 2022. However, this progress remains precariously balanced, unevenly distributed across regions, and crucially, insufficient to meet the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of eradicating hunger by 2030. This stark assessment comes from the latest "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026" (SOFI 2026) report, a comprehensive analysis released on Tuesday by five United Nations specialized agencies: the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The report underscores that while overall numbers are moving in the right direction, the pace of improvement is not aligned with the urgency required to achieve SDG 2, "Zero Hunger," within the next five years. The improvements are described as "fragile," highlighting their vulnerability to external shocks such as conflicts, climate extremes, and economic downturns.
Regional Disparities Exacerbate Global Challenges
A critical takeaway from the SOFI 2026 report is the widening chasm between regions in their progress towards food security. Asia, along with Latin America and the Caribbean, has demonstrated commendable and steady improvements in recent years, contributing significantly to the global decline in hunger. However, Africa stands in sharp contrast, now bearing the brunt of global hunger with approximately 309 million people facing food scarcity, surpassing Asia’s 292 million.
While Africa’s previously alarming upward trend in hunger appears to be stabilizing, with the proportion of its population affected dipping from 20.3 percent in 2024 to 20.0 percent in 2025, the continent grapples with the highest absolute number of hungry individuals amidst a rapidly expanding population. This demographic reality amplifies the scale of the challenge, demanding intensified and targeted interventions.
The report also delves into broader measures of food access, revealing a similar pattern of uneven recovery. In 2025, an estimated 25.8 percent of the global population, translating to around 2.1 billion people, experienced moderate or severe food insecurity. This means that a significant portion of humanity was periodically forced to compromise on the quality or quantity of food consumed. While this figure represents a reduction from 27.1 percent in 2024 and 28.7 percent in 2020, indicating nearly 86 million fewer people facing such insecurity compared to the previous year and 135 million fewer than in 2020, it remains notably above pre-pandemic levels.
The regional disparities in food insecurity are stark. Over half of Africa’s population (56.6 percent) faced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025. This contrasts sharply with Asia (20.3 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (22.9 percent), and Northern America and Europe (8.7 percent). Furthermore, the report reiterates that food insecurity continues to disproportionately affect rural areas compared to peri-urban and urban settings. Women, too, remain at a disadvantage, although the gender gap in food insecurity narrowed slightly in 2025, indicating that systemic inequalities persist.
Conflict and Climate Extremes Threaten Future Projections
The SOFI 2026 report introduces a sobering analysis of projected hunger levels over the next five years, particularly in light of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. The report’s modeling suggests that the ongoing crisis, with its ripple effects on food inflation driven by elevated energy and fertilizer prices, could lead to approximately 510 to 520 million people still facing hunger in 2030. This projection is higher than the pre-conflict scenario, which anticipated around 503 million.
This projection, while still showing a potential 20 percent decrease in the global number of undernourished people from current levels, is significantly undermined by the potential for further disruptors. The report explicitly notes that these projections do not account for the impact of other potential shocks, such as extreme weather events like El Niño, which are predicted for 2026 and 2027. Such events, if they materialize with significant intensity, could further exacerbate the food security situation, pushing the numbers higher and jeopardizing SDG 2 even more severely.
The joint authors of the report issue a stern warning: the protracted conflict in the Middle East, coupled with the increasing frequency and intensity of weather extremes and a concerning reduction in official development assistance and humanitarian funding, are collectively threatening to unravel the hard-won progress achieved in combating global hunger. These converging crises demand a coordinated and robust international response.
Stalled Progress on Global Nutrition Targets
Beyond the headline figures on hunger, the SOFI 2026 report casts a critical light on global nutrition targets, revealing equally insufficient progress. The report highlights that advancements in maternal and child nutrition are falling short of international commitments, including the specific 2030 nutrition targets.
Key indicators paint a concerning picture. Child stunting (low height for age), wasting (low weight for height), overweight, low birthweight, and exclusive breastfeeding rates are showing only marginal improvements. The pace of progress is simply too slow to meet the established goals. Compounding these issues, anaemia among women aged 15 to 49 years is reported to be worsening in many regions. Simultaneously, the prevalence of adult obesity continues its steady ascent, rising from 12.1 percent in 2012 to 16.2 percent in 2024, directly contravening the target to halt its rise by 2025.
The report also underscores the critical issue of dietary quality. Globally, only 30.8 percent of children aged 6 to 23 months are consuming a minimally diverse diet, leaving them vulnerable to nutrient deficiencies. Furthermore, a staggering 150 million children under five years of age are still suffering from stunting, a condition with long-lasting consequences for physical and cognitive development.
Regional variations in nutrition outcomes are also significant. While the prevalence of child stunting is declining in Africa and is on track to meet the 2030 target in Asia, and exclusive breastfeeding rates are improving across most regions with available data, persistent challenges remain. Nearly all regions are experiencing widening gaps in addressing anaemia among women, a critical issue impacting maternal and child health. Child overweight, a growing concern, is rapidly increasing in Oceania.
The Prohibitive Cost of a Healthy Diet
This year’s SOFI report places a significant emphasis on the escalating cost of a healthy diet, a crucial determinant of both food security and nutrition. The report defines a healthy diet as one that is adequate, balanced, diverse, and moderate, requiring the expenditure of locally available foods that meet energy and most nutrient requirements. The average minimum expenditure needed for such a diet has risen substantially.
In 2025, the global average cost of a healthy diet stood at 4.28 purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars per person per day, a significant increase from 3.44 PPP dollars in 2021 and 2.94 PPP dollars in 2017. Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the highest regional costs at 4.91 PPP dollars per person per day.
While the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet has declined globally – from 2.97 billion (37.4 percent of the global population) in 2021 to 2.69 billion (32.7 percent) in 2025 – this trend masks deep-seated regional inequalities. In Africa, the affordability of a healthy diet has worsened markedly, with a staggering 66.6 percent of the population unable to afford it in 2025. This is more than double the levels observed in Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean, highlighting the immense burden on African households.
The report attributes these cost variations to structural differences in agrifood systems. The higher cost of animal-source foods, fruits, and vegetables, compared to starchy staples, significantly impacts affordability. In Africa, animal-source foods are the largest contributor to the cost of a healthy diet, whereas in Latin America and the Caribbean, vegetables represent the largest share.
Reforming Food Value Chains to Enhance Affordability
The SOFI 2026 report identifies food value chains as a major determinant of food prices. Post-farmgate activities, including processing, logistics, and wholesale, account for a substantial portion of what consumers pay – ranging from 70 to 75 percent, with up to 40 percent of total costs originating in these segments. Improving efficiency in these areas is therefore deemed critical, especially for lowering the cost of perishable, nutrient-rich foods.
To effectively reduce the cost of a healthy diet, the report advocates for context-specific policy responses. These should focus on expanding the supply of nutritious foods while simultaneously reducing structural costs across agrifood value chains. This necessitates significant investments in infrastructure, research and development, irrigation systems, and cold chain facilities. Furthermore, reforms in subsidy regimes, trade facilitation, and regulatory frameworks are essential.
The report emphasizes that targeted interventions aimed at boosting productivity, minimizing food losses, and promoting sustainable agricultural practices can yield multifaceted benefits. Such interventions can simultaneously improve nutrition outcomes, enhance the resilience of food systems to shocks, and contribute to climate goals.
Official Responses and the Path Forward
The leaders of the five UN agencies behind the SOFI 2026 report have collectively voiced their concerns and commitment to addressing the complex challenges outlined.
QU Dongyu, Director-General of the FAO, stated, "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. Recent crises – from natural disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic to man-made disasters like hotspots of conflicts, the war in Ukraine, the Gaza crisis, and the recent Strait of Hormuz disruption – have demonstrated both the resilience of agrifood systems and the need to strengthen them further to better serve the world’s most vulnerable people, farmers and consumers."
Alvaro Lario, President of IFAD, highlighted the affordability crisis, saying, "SOFI tells us that the cost of a healthy diet continues to rise and that nearly 2.7 billion people may still be unable to afford a healthy diet. Resilient value chains must be a central part of the answer. Our task now is to turn the evidence SOFI provides into investment – and to do so through partnership. Together, we can build the value chains, market systems and rural economies that make healthy food affordable for all."
Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF, underscored the impact on children: "Every child deserves the chance to grow and develop to their full potential, and this starts with access to nutritious, affordable food. This report is a stark reminder that food systems fail millions of children and families. Food, health, education and social protection must go hand in hand to protect the most vulnerable children and women from global shocks."
Carl Skau, Acting Executive Director of the WFP, drew attention to the human cost, stating, "Behind every number in this report is a family counting the cost of food. Conflict and climate shocks push them further beyond their means. We must continue working with partner agencies, governments and communities to build food systems that hold up under shock, so families can afford nutritious diets, even in times of crisis. We now need sustained investment to match the scale of the challenge."
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, emphasized the link between diet and health: "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."
The report concludes with a powerful affirmation: "The work that lies ahead over the years to 2030 is immense. However, a world in which a healthy diet is no longer out of reach for nearly one in three people is a world worth building." This sentiment encapsulates the critical juncture humanity faces, where renewed political will, sustained investment, and innovative, context-specific policies are paramount to ensuring a food-secure and nourished future for all. The SOFI 2026 report serves as a crucial roadmap, illuminating the challenges and charting a course toward a more equitable and sustainable global food system.
