Acute hunger has doubled over the past decade and famine was identified in two places in 2025 for the first time in the Global Report on Food Crises’ history.
A total of 266 million people across 47 countries and territories faced high levels of acute food insecurity in 2025, representing almost 23% of the analysed population, the report found, as cited by a statement of the European Commission on Friday.
That share was marginally higher than in 2024 and nearly double the level recorded in 2016.
Ten countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — accounted for around two-thirds of all people facing high levels of acute hunger, according to the Global Network Against Food Crises, the international alliance behind the annual report.
Famine was identified in Gaza and parts of Sudan in 2025 using the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a system that ranks the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition. It was the first time since the report began that famine had been confirmed in two separate contexts in the same year.
Malnutrition and displacement
Acute malnutrition also remained widespread, with 35.5 million children acutely malnourished in 2025, including nearly 10 million suffering from severe acute malnutrition, the report said. Nearly half of food-crisis contexts also faced nutrition crises.
More than 85 million people were forcibly displaced across food-crisis contexts in 2025 — including internally displaced people, refugees and asylum-seekers — with those forced to flee consistently facing higher levels of acute hunger than host communities.
“Conflict remains the primary driver of acute food insecurity and malnutrition for millions around the world, with outright famine emerging in two conflict-affected areas in the same year — an unprecedented development,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in the report’s foreword.
The European Union said it remained committed to fighting food insecurity as a humanitarian donor, quoting Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib.
The report is published annually by the Global Network Against Food Crises, an alliance that includes the United Nations, the European Union and other partners.
