- A UN report says Africa now has the world’s largest hungry population
- About 309 million Africans faced hunger in 2025
- Conflict, climate shocks and poverty continue to worsen food insecurity
Africa now has the highest number of people experiencing hunger globally, according to a new United Nations report that highlights a sharp rise in undernourishment across the continent.
Eko Hot Blog gathered that the findings were contained in the UN’s latest report on global food security and nutrition, released on Tuesday by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and four other UN agencies.
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Although the report noted that global hunger has gradually declined in recent years, it said progress has been uneven, with Africa now overtaking Asia as the region most affected by food insecurity.
FAO Director of Agrifood Economics, David Laborde, said the global pattern of hunger has shifted significantly over the past two decades.
He explained that countries such as China have made major strides in reducing hunger, while India has also intensified efforts to tackle the problem, contributing to improvements across Asia.
According to the report, about 309 million people in Africa were affected by hunger in 2025, representing roughly 20 per cent of the continent’s population.
Asia ranked second, with an estimated 292 million undernourished people, accounting for about six per cent of its population.
Globally, the share of people experiencing hunger declined from 8.6 per cent in 2022 to 7.8 per cent in 2025, reducing the number of affected people by about 43 million to 645 million.
Despite the improvement, the report noted that hunger levels remain above those recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The UN agencies also observed that undernourishment in Africa has been rising steadily since 2017, although recent data suggests conditions may have begun to improve slightly in 2025.
The report further revealed that access to healthy diets has become more difficult across Africa.
It estimated that 66.6 per cent of Africans cannot afford a nutritious diet, more than twice the proportion recorded in Asia.
To address the challenge, the UN urged African governments to strengthen the production and availability of animal-source foods, describing them as the most expensive category of food on the continent.
The report attributed Africa’s worsening food situation to multiple factors, including climate-related disasters, armed conflicts and economic pressures.
Laborde said prolonged conflicts in countries such as Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo have disrupted farming activities and deprived millions of people of their livelihoods.
The UN previously warned that about 20 million people in Sudan face severe food insecurity due to the ongoing conflict, while escalating tensions in the Middle East could push even more people into acute hunger.
Although rising energy and fertiliser costs linked to global conflicts have not yet had their full impact, the FAO warned that the crisis remains unresolved and could worsen if instability persists.
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