Global hunger declined and high food price inflation – the 2025 SOFI report

Global hunger declined marginally in 2024 while regional and national data shows uneven progress, finds the 2025 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report. SOFI is an annual report co-authored by five UN agencies: the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the UN Children’s Fund. It is a crucial stocktake of global progress to achieve SDG2.1: Zero Hunger and SDG2.2: End all forms of malnutrition and where further effort is needed to accomplish these goals.

This year’s report comes at a difficult moment: hunger hotspots such as Gaza, South Sudan and Yemen are driving up acute food insecurity while stark development budget cuts threaten to undo decades of development progress. The report publishes data from 2024 and thus does not capture the impact of these most recent shocks.

Critically, the 2025 SOFI report emphasizes that where the right policies and investments are in place, hunger is declining. Latin America is one such bright spot where investments in school meals and other social protection programmes in addition trade policies are successfully tackling food insecurity. It reminds us that hunger is human-made – but so are the solutions.

Access the full report here.

SOFI 2025 findings:

  • After years of rising hunger, new and updated data from the 2025 SOFI report shows a modest decline in global hunger in 2024. Despite this welcome downturn, as many as 720 million people went to bed hungry. At this rate, the world will not achieve SDG2 with 512 million hungry people projected in 2030 – of whom, 60% will live on the African continent.

  • At the regional level, there is mixed progress with declines in hunger in South America, and South-eastern and Southern Asia but a continued increase in Africa where hunger was experienced by 307 million people or 20.2% of the population in 2024. Globally and in every region of the world, women are more likely to be hungry than men.

  • New malnutrition data shows mixed and uneven progress to achieve the WHA targets. Declines in child stunting (23.2% in 2024) and an increase in exclusive breastfeeding (47.8% in 2023) are reported while indicators on child wasting and child overweight have stagnated. Meanwhile, global rates of anaemia in women have increased to 30.7%.

  • Food price inflation – the thematic focus of this year’s report – affects every country in the world. Over the last five years, food price inflation peaked at 30% in May 2023 but wages have not kept pace. This has driven up the cost of a healthy diet and forced low-income households to make difficult choices between food and other life essentials with severe impacts for food security and nutrition: a 10% food price increase leads to a 3.5% rise in food insecurity and a 4.3% rise in child wasting. Low-income countries experienced some of the highest increases in food prices while also being limited in their ability to respond adequately.

  • 2.6 billion people were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2024. The decline in the global figure masks uneven progress at the regional level: the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet rose on the African continent (1 billion people) and in low-income  (545 million people) and lower-middle-income countries (869 million people). Rises in food prices drove up the cost of a healthy diet in 2024.

Key messages:

For farmers
For farmers

Key messages: 

  • Hunger disproportionately affects rural areas with 32% of people in rural areas food insecure. As the backbone of rural economies and the guardians of natural systems, rural people cannot be left behind.
  • The poorest and most vulnerable groups – including rural women and children – are most affected by food price inflation.

Things you can do:

  • Help amplify the SOFI report and our #EmptyPlates campaign on social media:

1)  Write one of the following options on an empty plate:
720 mln people go to bed hungry;
Hunger is human-made;
End the Global Food Crisis Now;
2.6 billion people can’t afford a healthy diet;
#EmptyPlates

2) Take a photo of yourself holding the empty plate

3) Post it on social media with #HungryforAction, #EmptyPlates #SOFI2025 and tag your Head of State and/ or Minister of Agriculture

NB: You can find suggested language and other social media assets here.

  • Call on world leaders to scale up investments in food systems transformation that increase productivity, strengthen smallholder farmers’ livelihoods and boost their incomes.
For chefs
For chefs

Key messages: 

  • 2.6 billion people were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2024. Access to nutritious delicious food is critical for a healthy and full life. Without it, no other progress is possible. We need affordable, equitable, nutritious and delicious food systems NOW. 


GOOD 👏 FOOD 👏 FOR 👏 ALL. 

Things you can do:

  • Help amplify the SOFI report and our #EmptyPlates campaign on social media:

1)  Write one of the following options on an empty plate: 720 mln people go to bed hungry;
hunger is human-made;
End the Global Food Crisis Now;
2.6 billion people can’t afford a healthy diet;
#EmptyPlates

2) Take a photo of yourself holding the empty plate

3) Post it on social media with #HungryForAction, #EmptyPlates #SOFI2025 and tag your Head of State

NB: You can find suggested language and other social media assets here.

  • Share this post on your social media platforms:

Hunger is a human-made crisis. As many as 720 million people go to bed hungry every night, not because we lack food, but because we lack action.

🍽️ We need to transform food systems to make them resilient, inclusive, and just.

🛑 Hunger is human-made – but so are the solutions. It’s time to ask those in power: Who do you serve?

The time to act is NOW. #SOFI2025 #ZeroHunger #HungryforAction #GoodFood4All
For campaigners
For campaigners

Key messages: 

  • Food price inflation is undermining good nutrition – a 10% food price increase leads to a 3.5% increase in food insecurity and a 4.3% increase in child wasting.
  • 2.6 billion people were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2024. Healthy diets are critical to preventing malnutrition and boosting the health of future generations.
  • Effective and targeted social protection programmes, including school feeding programmes, have proved successful in reaching the most vulnerable and contributed to the decline in hunger in the region.

Things you can do as an individual and organisation: 

  • Help amplify the SOFI report and our #EmptyPlates campaign on social media:

1)  Write one of the following statements on an empty plate:
720 mln people go to bed hungry;
hunger is human-made;
End the Global Food Crisis Now;
2.6 billion people can’t afford a healthy diet;
#EmptyPlates

2) Take a photo of yourself holding the empty plate

3) Post it on social media with #HungryForAction, #EmptyPlates #SOFI2025 and tag your Head of State and/or relevant Minister e.g. Agriculture, Health, Finance, Social Welfare

NB: You can find suggested language and other social media assets here.

  • Hunger is human-made – but so are the solutions. Join us in elevating the report amplifying the new data with this social media toolkit.
  • Call on world leaders to adopt the SOFI2025 report recommendations to end hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by sharing the below post and tagging your Heads of State: 

Hunger is a human-made crisis. As many as 720 million people go to bed hungry every night, not because we lack food, but because we lack action.

🍽️ We need to transform food systems to make them resilient, inclusive, and just.

🛑 Hunger is human-made – but so are the solutions. It’s time to ask those in power: Who do you serve?

The time to act is NOW. #SOFI2025 #ZeroHunger #HungryforAction #GoodFood4All
For policymakers
For policymakers

Key messages: 

  • Where the right policies and investments are in place, global hunger is declining. Social protection, school meals and trade policies in Latin America are credited for the declining rate of hunger.
  • Government policies have the power to worsen or mitigate food price inflation.

Things you can do:

  • Adopt the SOFI 2025 report recommendations, including the need to scale up investments in food systems transformation especially in regions that are being left behind. 
  • Commit to greater coordination in trade policies to help alleviate food price inflation

 

Download the report:

In Brief

SOFI 2025 Report

Digital report

Resources:

Future Fork with Maximo Torero on the state of global hunger and malnutrition on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Innovative financing to end hunger and malnutrition – The 2024 SOFI report in five figures

SOFI 2022 in Five Figures

Lean on the bean – beans as a solution to rising food price inflation

Follow the Action