ROME, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Global hunger declined for a third consecutive year in 2025, but progress remains fragile, uneven and insufficient to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030, according to a United Nations report released on Tuesday.
The 2026 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World estimates that 7.8 percent of the world's population, or about 645 million people, faced hunger in 2025, down from 8.1 percent in 2024 and 8.6 percent in 2022.
Recovery has been uneven across regions, the report underlines. Asia, together with Latin America and the Caribbean, has recorded steady improvements, while Africa now has the largest number of people facing hunger: around 309 million people in 2025. More than half of Africa's population, or 56.6 percent, also experienced moderate or severe food insecurity, far above the levels in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and North America and Europe.
The Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Chief Economist Maximo Torero told the media that declining global hunger proves that progress is possible. However, although hunger in Africa has begun to stabilize after years of increases, he said the pace of improvement needs to accelerate.
Torero also warned that geopolitical tensions and climate-related shocks could jeopardize recent progress. He said the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz could push up food inflation through higher energy and fertilizer prices, while potential weather extremes such as El Nino may further affect agricultural production and food security in the coming years.
The report warned that recent gains remain vulnerable. The 2026 Middle East conflict, together with weather extremes and reductions in official development assistance and humanitarian funding, could undermine progress in ending global hunger, it said. Depending on the impact of the Strait of Hormuz crisis on food inflation, between 510 million and 520 million people could still face hunger by 2030.
The report also found that progress toward global nutrition targets remains too slow. Improvements in child nutrition indicators remain insufficient to meet the 2030 targets, while anaemia among women has worsened and adult obesity has continued to rise, reaching 16.2 percent in 2024.
By examining the cost of a healthy diet, the report found that the average global cost rose to 4.28 purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars per person per day in 2025, while the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet declined to 2.69 billion from 2.97 billion in 2021. However, affordability deteriorated in Africa, where 66.6 percent of the population could not afford a healthy diet.
Lowering the cost of a healthy diet requires context-specific policy responses, the report stressed. These would include investments in infrastructure and agrifood value chains, subsidy reforms, trade facilitation and regulatory frameworks to improve access to nutritious foods while strengthening resilience and supporting climate goals.
Torero said that reducing the cost of healthy diets will require both greater investment in infrastructure, including storage, logistics and cold chains, and policy measures that support the production and affordability of nutrient-rich foods.
The report was jointly published by the FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the UN Children's Fund, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization. ■
