Three consecutive years of progress in reducing global hunger demonstrate that hunger is not inevitable, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, said Tuesday at the launch of the 2026 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report.
According to the SOFI report, an estimated 645 million people (7.8 percent of the global population) faced hunger in 2025. This represents nearly 14 million fewer people than in 2024 and 43 million fewer than at the 2022 peak.
Food insecurity also improved substantially. In 2025, approximately 2.1 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity, nearly 86 million fewer people than one year earlier. The largest gains were recorded in South America and Asia, particularly in Southern Asia.
Speaking at the launch event at FAO’s headquarters in Rome, Qu said the report’s findings demonstrate that determined policy action can deliver results.
“These numbers are important because they show that hunger is not inevitable,” the Director-General said. “With strong economic policies, social protection and sustained investments in more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable agrifood systems, we can bend the hunger curve.”
The launch event also saw contributions from the heads of three of the four UN agencies that helped FAO compile the report – Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD); Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO); and Carl Skau, Acting Executive Director of the of the World Food Programme (WFP).
During a panel discussion, several government ministers shared their countries’ experiences in fighting hunger and malnutrition, including José Ignacio Paliza, Minister of the Presidency of the Dominican Republic; Cheikhou Oumar Ba, Minister for Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Livestock of Senegal; and Abdurakhmonov Ibrokhim Yulchievich, Minister for Agriculture of Uzbekistan. Fernanda Machiaveli Morão De Oliveira, Minister for Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture of Brazil, provided closing remarks.
Progress remains fragile and uneven
Despite the positive trends highlighted in this year’s edition of SOFI, the report warns that progress remains uneven and vulnerable to multiple shocks.
Africa, for instance, recorded an important turning point, with the prevalence of hunger declining from 20.3 percent in 2024 to 20.0 percent in 2025, marking the first interruption of the continent’s upward hunger trend since 2017. However, approximately 309 million people in Africa remain undernourished, and rapid population growth means the absolute number of hungry people could still increase in the coming years.
Globally, the outlook remains concerning. Despite recent progress, the report projects that around 520 million people could still face hunger in 2030, putting the world off track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger). This estimate may underestimate risks because it does not fully account for the potential impacts of a strong El Niño event or recent reductions in development and humanitarian financing, FAO’s Director-General warned.
Qu noted that hunger is only one dimension of the global food security challenge: Nearly one-third of the world’s population remains unable to afford a healthy diet, exposing millions to malnutrition and diet-related non-communicable diseases.
While food production has expanded in many regions, SOFI 2026 shows that nutritious foods often remain costly because expenses accumulate across storage, processing, transport and retail stages. Inadequate infrastructure, weak cold-chain systems, unreliable energy supplies and inefficient markets continue to drive up the price of fruits, vegetables and animal-source foods, limiting access for low-income households.
Policy priorities
In his address, Director-General called for urgent action to sustain and accelerate recent gains.
Key priorities include keeping food, energy and agricultural input markets open, avoiding export restrictions, and strengthening targeted social protection programmes for vulnerable populations. Governments and development partners are also urged to ensure farmers can access fertilizers, quality seeds, water, credit and other essential inputs before planting decisions become irreversible.
Longer-term investments are needed across agrifood systems, particularly in irrigation, storage facilities, cold chains, transport infrastructure, early-warning systems and anticipatory action mechanisms. Such investments can reduce the cost of nutritious foods, improve resilience to shocks and make healthy diets more affordable.
“In a world of ongoing and overlapping shocks, progress cannot be taken for granted; it must be protected, accelerated and extended to everyone, everywhere to ensure the Four Betters: better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life – leaving no one behind,” Qu said.
