The latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI 2025) report presents a complex and nuanced picture of global hunger, revealing both encouraging progress and deeply concerning setbacks. While the world saw an overall decline in hunger in 2024, significant regional disparities highlight the persistent challenges in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2, or Zero Hunger.
Globally, an estimated 8.2 percent of the population, approximately 673 million people, experienced hunger in 2024, which is a notable decrease from 8.5 percent in 2023 and 8.7 percent in 2022. This represents 15 million fewer people facing hunger than in 2023, and 22 million fewer than in 2022.
Despite this welcome decline, the current estimates regrettably remain above pre-pandemic levels, a lingering impact significantly attributed to the high food inflation of recent years.This positive global trend was predominantly driven by marked improvements in Southern Asia and Latin America. In Southern Asia, for instance, the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) fell to 6.7 percent, impacting 323 million people, down from 7.9 percent in 2022. Similarly, Latin America and the Caribbean experienced a decrease in its PoU to 5.1 percent, or 34 million people, in 2024, a significant drop from its 2020 peak of 6.1 percent.
However, this encouraging news is starkly contrasted by a steady and alarming rise in hunger across Africa and Western Asia. In Africa, the proportion of the population facing hunger surged past 20 percent in 2024, affecting a staggering 307 million people, while Western Asia saw an estimated 12.7 percent of its population, over 39 million people, potentially facing hunger in the same year. These regions include many countries already grappling with prolonged food crises. The report projects a grim future, warning that 512 million people could be chronically undernourished by 2030, with almost 60 percent of them residing in Africa, underscoring the immense challenge in achieving SDG 2.
A major factor hindering global food security and nutrition recovery has been the surge in food price inflation between 2021 and 2023. The SOFI 2025 report attributes this inflation to a complex interplay of the global policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including extensive fiscal and monetary interventions, combined with the far-reaching impacts of the war in Ukraine and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events. Since 2020, global food price inflation has consistently outpaced headline inflation, peaking in January 2023 at 13.6 percent, a significant 5.1 percentage points above the general inflation rate.
This inflationary pressure disproportionately affected low-income countries. While the median global food price inflation reached 13.6 percent in early 2023, it soared to a devastating 30 percent in low-income countries by May 2023. Despite a global decrease in the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet from 2.76 billion in 2019 to 2.60 billion in 2024, this improvement was uneven.
In low-income countries, where the cost of a healthy diet rose more sharply, the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet actually increased from 464 million in 2019 to 545 million in 2024. Lower-middle-income countries (excluding India) also saw an increase, from 791 million to 869 million over the same period.
Beyond hunger, the report tracked several crucial nutrition indicators, revealing a mixed bag of progress and stagnation. For instance, the prevalence of stunting in children under five declined globally from 26.4 percent in 2012 to 23.2 percent in 2024. However, the prevalence of child overweight, at 5.5 percent in 2024, and child wasting, at 6.6 percent in 2024, remained largely unchanged compared to 2012 levels.
A positive development was the significant increase in exclusive breastfeeding among infants under six months, rising from 37.0 percent in 2012 to 47.8 percent in 2023, reflecting a growing recognition of its health benefits. Conversely, the prevalence of adult obesity rose from 12.1 percent in 2012 to 15.8 percent in 2022. New data also showed an increase in anaemia among women aged 15 to 49, from 27.6 percent in 2012 to 30.7 percent in 2023. Furthermore, new SDG indicators revealed that only about one-third of children aged 6 to 23 months and two-thirds of women aged 15 to 49 years met minimum dietary diversity.
To combat these multifaceted challenges, the SOFI 2025 report recommends a multi-pronged policy approach. This includes targeted and time-bound fiscal measures, such as social protection programs, to safeguard vulnerable households. It also calls for credible and transparent monetary policies to contain inflationary pressures. Finally, the report stresses the importance of strategic investments in agrifood research and development (R&D), transport and production infrastructure, and market information systems to boost productivity and resilience.
Leaders of the five specialized United Nations agencies responsible for the report echoed the urgency of these findings. QU Dongyu, FAO Director-General, underscored the need to “intensify efforts to ensure that everyone has access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food,” emphasizing collaborative and innovative approaches for vulnerable regions. Alvaro Lario, IFAD President, highlighted that “investments in rural and agricultural transformation are not only essential for ensuring food and nutrition security – they are also critical for global stability”.
Catherine Russell, UNICEF Executive Director, voiced profound concern, stating that “over 190 million children under the age of 5 are affected by undernutrition,” and urged immediate action to provide vulnerable families with affordable, nutritious food, strengthen social protection, and promote breastfeeding. Cindy McCain, WFP Executive Director, issued a stark warning: “Hunger remains at alarming levels, yet the funding needed to tackle it is falling,” expressing fear that funding cuts could “soon wipe out these hard-won gains, sparking further instability”.
Lastly, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, acknowledged the progress but stressed that “much more needs to be done to relieve millions of people from the burdens of food insecurity and malnutrition,” directing efforts to ensure universal access to a healthy diet.
The SOFI 2025 report thus serves as a critical reminder that while some battles against hunger are being won, the overarching war for global food security is far from over, demanding coordinated and sustained efforts to ensure no one is left behind.
