The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026: Progress Fragile, Uneven, and Insufficient to Meet 2030 Goals

Global hunger has seen a decline for the third consecutive year, with 2025 marking a significant, albeit slow, improvement in the fight against food insecurity. However, the latest findings from the comprehensive "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026" (SOFI 2026) report, jointly released by five United Nations specialized agencies, paint a picture of fragile progress. While encouraging, these advancements are unevenly distributed across regions and remain insufficient to achieve the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the 2030 deadline. The report underscores a persistent gap between current trends and the global commitment to a world free from hunger and malnutrition.

The SOFI 2026 report estimates that 7.8 percent of the global population, approximately 645 million people, faced hunger in 2025. This represents a downward trend from 8.1 percent in 2024 and 8.6 percent in 2022, indicating a sustained, though gradual, improvement. The reduction amounts to nearly 14 million fewer people affected by hunger compared to the previous year and a substantial 43 million fewer than in 2022. This statistical decrease offers a glimmer of hope, suggesting that concerted efforts, when applied, can yield positive results.

Regional Disparities Highlight Persistent Challenges

Despite the overall global decline, the recovery from food insecurity is far from uniform. Asia, along with Latin America and the Caribbean, has demonstrated steady improvements in recent years, contributing significantly to the global reduction in hunger figures. However, the continent of Africa stands out as a region facing profound and persistent challenges. As of 2025, Africa is home to approximately 309 million hungry people, surpassing Asia’s 292 million. While Africa’s previously escalating trend of hunger appears to be stabilizing, with the proportion of its population facing hunger decreasing marginally from 20.3 percent in 2024 to 20.0 percent in 2025, the sheer absolute number of individuals affected, coupled with a rapidly growing population, places the continent at the epicenter of the global hunger crisis. This stark regional divergence underscores the need for tailored interventions and increased support for the most vulnerable regions.

The broader picture of food access, measured by food insecurity, echoes these regional disparities. 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 condition signifies that individuals were at times forced to compromise on the quality or quantity of the food they consumed. While this figure represents a decrease from 27.1 percent in 2024 and 28.7 percent in 2020, indicating approximately 86 million fewer people facing food insecurity than in 2024 and 135 million fewer than in 2020, it remains above pre-pandemic levels. The lingering impact of global shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing geopolitical conflicts, continues to strain food systems and affect access to adequate nutrition.

Further disaggregation of food insecurity data reveals a stark reality: over half of Africa’s population, precisely 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). The report also confirms persistent inequalities within countries, with food insecurity continuing to be more prevalent in rural areas than in peri-urban and urban settings. Moreover, women remain disproportionately affected by food insecurity, although the gender gap showed a slight narrowing in 2025, suggesting that targeted gender-sensitive approaches may be yielding some positive, albeit modest, results.

Impact of Middle East Conflict on Hunger Projections

The SOFI 2026 report introduces a critical new dimension to its analysis by offering updated hunger projections for the next five years, specifically considering the impact of the conflict in the Middle East. The protracted crisis and its ripple effects on global food inflation, exacerbated by higher energy and fertilizer prices, present a significant threat to achieving SDG 2. Depending on the duration and severity of the conflict’s impact on these economic factors, projections suggest that between 510 to 520 million people may still be facing hunger in 2030. This figure is higher than the pre-conflict scenario’s projection of 503 million. While the overall global number of undernourished people is still expected to decrease by 20 percent by 2030, the conflict in the Middle East, if prolonged, could significantly impede this progress.

It is crucial to note that these projections do not account for other potential disruptors. Unforeseen weather extremes, such as the anticipated El Niño events in 2026 and 2027, could further compound the challenges and exacerbate food insecurity. The report’s joint authors – 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) – issue a stern warning that the Middle East conflict, alongside the impacts of climate change and potential reductions in official development assistance and humanitarian funding, are collectively threatening to undermine the hard-won progress made in combating global hunger.

Stagnating Progress on Global Nutrition Targets

Beyond the reduction in hunger, the SOFI 2026 report also provides a sobering assessment of progress on global nutrition targets. The advancements in maternal and child nutrition remain insufficient to meet international commitments, including the critical 2030 nutrition targets. Key indicators such as child stunting (low height for age), wasting (low weight for height), overweight, low birthweight, and exclusive breastfeeding rates show only marginal improvements. The pace of progress is deemed too slow to achieve the set targets.

Compounding these concerns, the prevalence of anaemia among women aged 15 to 49 years is worsening in many regions. Simultaneously, adult obesity continues its steady increase, rising from 12.1 percent in 2012 to 16.2 percent in 2024. This trend runs directly counter to the target of halting the rise in obesity by 2025. The report highlights that only 30.8 percent of children aged 6 to 23 months worldwide consume a minimally diverse diet, and a staggering 150 million children under five years of age are still affected by stunting. This dual burden of malnutrition – undernutrition and obesity – presents a complex public health challenge requiring integrated policy responses.

Regional variations in nutritional outcomes are also pronounced. 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, the overall picture is far from uniformly positive. Nearly all regions are experiencing widening gaps in addressing anaemia among women, a critical issue with long-term health consequences. Furthermore, child overweight is increasing rapidly in Oceania, indicating the need for region-specific interventions to address diverse nutritional challenges.

The Prohibitive Cost of a Healthy Diet

This year’s SOFI report dedicates significant attention to the cost of a healthy diet, defining it as the average minimum expenditure required to obtain locally available foods that meet energy and most nutrient requirements. According to FAO and WHO, a healthy diet is characterized by being adequate, balanced, diverse, and moderate. The report underscores that the persistent high cost of such diets remains a major constraint to achieving SDG 2 (Zero Hunger). However, it also cautions that reducing these costs alone will not be sufficient to guarantee improved dietary quality and overall nutrition outcomes; broader systemic changes are necessary.

In 2025, the average global cost of a healthy diet rose to 4.28 purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars per person per day. This represents an increase from 3.44 PPP dollars in 2021 and 2.94 PPP dollars in 2017. Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the highest average 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 downward trend masks significant regional disparities.

Africa’s affordability situation has worsened markedly. In 2025, an alarming 66.6 percent of the African population was unable to afford a healthy diet, a figure more than double that observed in Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean. This indicates a critical affordability crisis in many African nations, where structural factors in agrifood systems contribute to higher food prices.

The report details how costs vary widely across regions due to structural differences in agrifood systems. Animal source foods, fruits, and vegetables constitute the largest share of costs for a healthy diet, while starchy staples contribute relatively less. In Africa, animal source foods are the most significant contributor to the cost of a healthy diet, whereas vegetables represent the largest share in Latin America and the Caribbean. These regional nuances highlight the need for context-specific strategies to make nutritious foods more accessible and affordable.

Transforming Food Value Chains for Affordability

The analysis points to food value chains as a major determinant of food prices. Post-farmgate activities, including processing, logistics, and wholesale, account for a substantial 70 to 75 percent of what consumers ultimately pay. Up to 40 percent of total costs can arise in these segments. Therefore, improving efficiency in these areas is critical, particularly for reducing the cost of perishable, nutrient-rich foods that are essential for a healthy diet.

The report advocates for context-specific policy responses to reduce the cost of a healthy diet. These responses should focus on expanding the supply of nutritious foods while simultaneously lowering structural costs across agrifood value chains. This involves strategic investments in infrastructure, research and development, irrigation, and cold chains. Furthermore, reforms in subsidy systems, trade facilitation, and regulatory frameworks are essential to create an enabling environment for affordable, healthy food.

Targeted interventions aimed at boosting productivity, reducing food loss and waste, and promoting sustainable agricultural practices can offer a multi-pronged approach. Such initiatives can simultaneously improve nutrition outcomes, strengthen the resilience of food systems to shocks, and contribute to climate goals, aligning with broader sustainable development objectives. The report concludes with a powerful statement: "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."

Official Responses and the Path Forward

The leaders of the five UN agencies that jointly authored the SOFI 2026 report have emphasized the urgency and complexity of the challenges ahead, while also reiterating their commitment to collective action.

FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, 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."

IFAD President, Alvaro Lario, highlighted the economic dimension: "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."

UNICEF Executive Director, Catherine Russell, focused on 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."

WFP Acting Executive Director, Carl Skau, underscored the human cost of food insecurity: "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."

WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, addressed the dual burden of malnutrition: "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."

Broader Implications and the Road to 2030

The SOFI 2026 report serves as a critical barometer of global progress towards SDG 2. The findings indicate that while progress is being made, the current trajectory is insufficient to achieve the target of Zero Hunger by 2030. The confluence of ongoing conflicts, climate change-induced extreme weather events, and persistent economic inequalities presents formidable obstacles. The report’s emphasis on the cost of a healthy diet and the transformation of food value chains suggests that future interventions must be multifaceted, addressing not only food availability but also affordability, accessibility, and the nutritional quality of diets.

The stark regional disparities, particularly the worsening situation in Africa, necessitate a renewed focus on targeted support and investment in vulnerable regions. The report’s analysis of the impact of the Middle East conflict on global hunger projections underscores the interconnectedness of global security and food security, highlighting the need for diplomatic solutions and a commitment to peace.

As the world approaches the 2030 deadline, the SOFI 2026 report is a call to action. It underscores the imperative for increased political will, sustained financial investment, and innovative policy solutions. The insights provided by the UN agencies offer a roadmap for a more equitable and food-secure future, emphasizing that the pursuit of a world where healthy diets are within reach for all remains a vital and achievable endeavor, provided a concerted global effort is mobilized. The report’s findings will undoubtedly inform policy discussions and programmatic interventions aimed at accelerating progress towards a hunger-free and well-nourished world.