By: Staff Writer
July 21, 2026
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 (SOFI 2026) report, released by the United Nations, said that global hunger declined for a third consecutive year in 2025, demonstrating that progress is possible. However, the improvements remain fragile, unevenly distributed and insufficient to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030,
Despite global progress, recovery remains uneven across regions. Asia, together with Latin America and the Caribbean, has recorded steady improvements in recent years. In contrast, Africa is now home to approximately 309 million hungry people, compared with 292 million in Asia. Although Africa’s previously rising trend is beginning to stabilize, with the share of its population facing hunger decreasing from 20.3 percent in 2024 to 20.0 percent in 2025, the continent now has the highest number of hungry people in absolute terms amid a rapidly growing population.
The report also said: “Steady progress has also occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a decrease in the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) from 6.1 percent in 2020 to 4.8 percent in 2025, which is below pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. The latest estimate is slightly lower than in 2015, at the outset of the 2030 Agenda, when the PoU for the region was 5.1 percent.
“About 32 million people were estimated to be facing hunger in 2025 based on the PoU, down by more than 1 million from 2024, and by 7.5 million from 2020. The subregion with the lowest PoU, and with the most marked improvement, is South America, where the PoU decreased from a peak of 5.5 percent in 2020 to 3.5 percent in 2025.
“Modest progress has also been made in Central America in recent years, with a decrease in the PoU from 5.7 percent in 2023 to 5.1 percent in 2025.
“The Caribbean is the most affected subregion, with an estimated 16.6 percent of the population facing hunger in 2025. While some improvement was seen in the Caribbean from 2022 to 2024, the new estimate points to a stagnation in progress between 2024 and 2025.”
Broader measures of food access tell a similar story. In 2025, an estimated 25.8 percent of the global population (around 2.1 billion people) experienced moderate or severe food insecurity, meaning they were at times forced to compromise on the quality or quantity of the food they ate. This is down from 27.1 percent in 2024 and 28.7 percent in 2020 – equivalent to nearly 86 million fewer people than in 2024 and 135 million fewer than in 2020, though still above pre-pandemic levels.
Regional disparities remain stark. More than half of Africa’s population (56.6 percent) faced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025, compared to 20.3 percent in Asia, 22.9 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 8.7 percent in Northern America and Europe. Food insecurity also continues to be more prevalent in rural areas than in peri-urban and urban areas, while women remain disproportionately affected, although the gender gap narrowed slightly in 2025.