The 2026 Global Report on Food Crises, released Friday by an alliance of UN agencies, the European Union (EU) and partners, finds that 266 million people in 47 countries experienced high levels of acute food insecurity by 2025 – almost a quarter of the population analyzed and almost doubled the proportion recorded in 2016.
The report paints a stark picture: hunger is no longer a series of short-term emergencies, but an ongoing and increasingly concentrated global challenge.
“Acute food insecurity today is not just widespread – it is also persistent and recurrent,” said UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Qu Dongyu, warning that the crisis has become structural rather than temporary.
Conflict the primary driver
Conflict remains the primary driver, accounting for more than half of all people facing severe hunger.
Ten countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen – accounted for two-thirds of all people facing high levels of acute hunger.
At the most extreme end, famine was confirmed in 2025 in Gaza and parts of Sudan – the first time since the report began that two separate famines have been recorded in a single year.
“This report is a call to action,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in the foreword, “to summon the political will to rapidly scale up investment in life-saving aid and work to end the conflicts that cause so much suffering.”
The report also highlights a sharp increase in the severity of hunger. More than 39 million people in 32 countries faced emergency levels of food insecurity, while the number of people experiencing catastrophic hunger has increased ninefold since 2016.
Number of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
Children who carry the burden
Children are among the hardest hit. In 2025, 35.5 million children were acutely malnourished, including nearly 10 million suffering from severe acute malnutrition – a life-threatening condition that dramatically increases the risk of death.
“Children with severe wasting are too thin for their height. Their immune system is weakened to the extent that common childhood diseases can become fatal,” Spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Ricardo Pires warned.
In the worst affected areas – including Gaza, Myanmar, South Sudan and Sudan – overlapping conflict crises, disease and limited access to services drive extreme levels of malnutrition and increase the risk of death.
Displacement exacerbates the crisis
Forced displacement exacerbates the crisis.
More than 85 million people were displaced across food crisis contexts last year, with displaced populations consistently facing higher levels of hunger than host communities.
“Forced displacement and food insecurity are deeply linked and form a vicious circle,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Barham Salih, warning that humanitarian aid alone is not enough to break the pattern.
Myanmar is among the countries with a very high number of people suffering from acute food insecurity. Here, a family is seen in an internally displaced persons camp in the eastern part of the country.
Collapse in funding
Despite the scale of the crisis, the report warns that funding is moving in the opposite direction.
Humanitarian and development funding for food and nutrition responses has fallen back to levels last seen nearly a decade agowhich limits the ability of governments and aid organizations to respond effectively.
At the same time, the data gaps are growing. The number of countries able to produce reliable food security assessments has fallen to its lowest level in a decade, meaning the true scale of hunger may be even greater than current estimates suggest.
Gloomy outlook for 2026
Looking ahead, the outlook for 2026 remains bleak. Ongoing conflicts, climate shocks and economic instability are expected to continue food insecurity at critical levels in many countries.
The report also highlights new risks associated with global market disruptions, including those stemming from the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, which could further increase food prices and strain supply chains.
Aid agencies warn that without a shift in approach, the world risks being locked into a cycle of deepening crises, where hunger is no longer a temporary emergency but an increasingly persistent feature of global instability.
“We must shift from reacting too late to acting early, and from relying solely on food aid to protecting local food production – because that is how we reduce need, save lives and build resilience over time,” said FAO Director-General Qu.
