Global Hunger Falls for a Third Straight Year to About 645 Million People in 2025, a UN Report Says
The number of people facing hunger around the world fell for a third consecutive year in 2025, to about 645 million, or 7.8 percent of the global population, according to the latest edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, published jointly by five United Nations agencies on 21 July 2026. The share was down from 8.1 percent in 2024 and from a peak of 8.6 percent in 2022, meaning about 14 million fewer people were going hungry than a year earlier and about 43 million fewer than at the height of the recent crisis.
A broader measure of hardship also improved. Moderate or severe food insecurity, which captures people forced to cut the quality or quantity of their food, affected 25.8 percent of the world’s population, around 2.1 billion people, in 2025, down from 27.1 percent a year earlier. The report, produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization together with IFAD, UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization, framed the figures as steady but fragile progress.
The gains were uneven across regions. Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean continued to make progress, while Africa now has the largest number of hungry people of any region, at around 309 million, having overtaken Asia at about 292 million, even as its prevalence rate edged lower. Food insecurity remained most widespread in Africa, underlining how the burden of hunger has become more concentrated there.
The report expects hunger to keep falling, but warned that conflict is set to blunt the improvement. It projected that the number of hungry people would decline further to around 510 to 520 million by 2030, a drop of roughly a fifth from 2025, but noted that this is higher than the roughly 503 million that would be reached without conflict, so conflict is expected to leave some 7 to 17 million more people hungry than they otherwise would be. Extreme weather linked to climate change and reductions in official development assistance and humanitarian funding were also flagged as threats to the progress.
Why it matters: Food security is a central measure of global economic and social wellbeing, and it shapes demand for the agricultural commodities and food imports on which many economies, including those in the Gulf and wider Middle East, depend. A third year of easing hunger is an encouraging signal, but the warning that conflict, climate and funding cuts will slow further progress highlights the fragility of the recovery and the stakes for policymakers and donors.
Outlook: Whether hunger falls as far as projected will hinge on the course of conflicts, the impact of shifting weather patterns, and the level of development and humanitarian funding. For food-importing economies, the trajectory of global hunger and the stability of food supplies remain closely tied to commodity prices and to the security of trade routes.
Sources: Food and Agriculture Organization; World Food Programme.
