Acute food insecurity and child malnutrition rose for a sixth consecutive year in 2024, affecting more than 295 million people across 53 countries and territories, according to a UN report released yesterday.
That marked a five per cent increase on 2023 levels, with 22.6pc of populations in worst-hit regions experiencing crisis-level hunger or worse.
“The 2025 Global Report on Food Crises paints a staggering picture,” said Rein Paulsen, Director of Emergencies and Resilience at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. “Conflict, weather extremes and economic shocks are the main drivers, and they often overlap,” he added.
Looking ahead, the UN warned of worsening conditions this year, citing the steepest projected drop in humanitarian food funding since the report’s inception – put at anywhere between 10pc to more than 45pc.
“Millions of hungry people have lost, or will soon lose, the critical lifeline we provide,” warned Cindy McCain, the head of the Rome-based World Food Programme.
Conflict was the leading cause of hunger, impacting nearly 140 million people across 20 countries in 2024, including areas facing “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity in Gaza, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali. Sudan has confirmed famine conditions.
Economic shocks, such as inflation and currency devaluation, helped push 59.4m people into food crises in 15 countries – nearly double the levels seen prior to the Covid-19 pandemic – including Syria and Yemen.
Extreme weather, particularly El Nino-induced droughts and floods, shunted 18 countries into crisis, affecting more than 96m people, especially in Southern Africa, Southern Asia, and the Horn of Africa.
The number of people facing famine-like conditions more than doubled to 1.9m – the highest since monitoring for the global report began in 2016.
Malnutrition among children reached alarming levels, the report said. Nearly 38m children under five were acutely malnourished across 26 nutrition crises, including in Sudan, Yemen, Mali and Gaza.
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