In 2025, 645 million people, representing 7.8% of the global population, experienced hunger. This reflects a decrease of 14 million people compared with 2024, largely due to progress in combating hunger in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia. Nevertheless, hunger figures remain at particularly high levels. Action Against Hunger is also highly pessimistic about prospects in the near future. This downward trend is threatened by the intensification of conflicts, particularly in the Middle East, the worsening impacts of climate change, the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and severe cuts in official development assistance.
Furthermore, while hunger is decreasing globally, disparities between continents continue to widen each year.
- Africa: 20% of the population (1 in 5 people), or 309 million people, suffer from hunger.
- Asia: 6% of the population, or 292 million people.
- Latin America and the Caribbean: 4.8% of the population, or 32 million people.
- Oceania: 8% of the population, or 3.7 million people.
Africa is becoming the Global Epicentre of Hunger
The SOFI 2026 report highlights a deeply concerning situation for the African continent, where one in five people suffered from hunger in 2025. Over the past 15 years, figures for the region have increased at an alarming rate: 171 million people were affected in 2010, compared with 309 million in 2025. For the first time, Africa now has more people suffering from hunger than Asia. The escalation of conflict, displacement, climate crises and economic shocks, including in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Nigeria, has had a major impact on the rise in hunger.
The proportion of people unable to afford a healthy diet remains highest in Africa, reaching 66.6% in 2025, more than double the estimated levels in Asia (28.9%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (25.7%). This has a significant impact on dietary diversity, particularly among children aged 6 to 23 months.
In 2025, Official Development Assistance from DAC member countries and associated donors fell sharply by 23.1% compared with 2024 levels. Action Against Hunger was forced to stop more than 50 projects across 20 countries, affecting hundreds of thousands of people and children, most of them on the African continent.
- In Madagascar, Action Against Hunger closed 3 of its 5 sub-bases in 2025. On the ground, 10 mobile clinics ceased operating, affecting the treatment of 5,036 children suffering from acute malnutrition and 1,900 children with childhood illnesses.
- In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example in Ituri Province alone, healthcare services once again became fee-based in health centers where Action Against Hunger programs had been suspended. The number of consultations fell by half. In 2026, Action Against Hunger teams were able to relaunch the project and provide healthcare to children in need in the area. However, the overall humanitarian response in the DRC remains underfunded.
- In Burkina Faso, 6 out of 8 bases were closed between 2025 and 2026.
“These figures reflect the explosion in humanitarian needs that Action Against Hunger is witnessing in many of the countries where we operate. Action Against Hunger therefore cannot celebrate this decline, which remains limited. All indications suggest that the goal of Zero Hunger by 2030 will not be achieved,” said Perrine Benoist, Co-Director of Action Against Hunger.
SOFI 2026 Thematic Focus: The Cost of a Healthy Diet
Each year, the SOFI report focuses on a specific topic. The 2026 theme is: “Understanding and Addressing the High Cost of a Healthy Diet.” In 2025, nearly one-third of the world’s population (32.7%) could still not afford a healthy diet.
For Action Against Hunger, the cost of a healthy diet is an important indicator, but it cannot by itself guide public policy. Reducing hunger to a question of prices conceals deeper structural causes and may, for example, weaken the incomes of food producers, despite the fact that fair remuneration is essential for them. It is therefore crucial to address inequalities and power imbalances across the entire food chain, from production to consumption.
Combating hunger must necessarily involve transforming food systems. It is essential to place peasant agroecology and local agriculture at the heart of this process, as they are the only approaches capable of guaranteeing diversified, equitable and high-quality diets. More than ever, the realization of the right to food must be at the center of public decision-making.
