UN Sounds Alarm Over Africa’s Deepening Hunger Crisis

(MENAFN) The United Nations has issued a stark warning about Africa’s deepening food crisis, revealing that more than 1 billion people across the continent—around two-thirds of its population—could not afford a healthy diet in 2024.

This alarming data comes from the newly released State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI 2025) report, unveiled Monday. The annual report is a joint effort by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Food Program (WFP), and World Health Organization (WHO), providing a comprehensive analysis of global progress on hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition.

Globally, the report found that about 673 million people—or 8.2% of the world’s population—faced hunger in 2024. This represents a slight decline from 8.5% in 2023 and 8.7% in 2022. However, these improvements were not shared equally, with most African and western Asian regions seeing hunger worsen.

“The proportion of the population facing hunger in Africa surpassed 20 percent in 2024, affecting 307 million people,” the report noted.

Forecasts indicate that Africa will continue to bear the brunt of global hunger, with the continent projected to account for nearly 60% of all chronically undernourished individuals by 2030. A key issue fueling this trend is the rising number of people who cannot afford nutritious food. In Africa, that number jumped from 864 million in 2019 to over 1 billion in 2024. In contrast, the global figure dropped from 2.76 billion to 2.6 billion during the same period.

“Hunger remains at alarming levels, yet the funding needed to tackle it is falling… This year, funding cuts of up to 40 percent mean that tens of millions of people will lose the vital lifeline we provide,” WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said.

She warned that the inability to reach those in “desperate need” threatens to unravel critical progress and could lead to renewed instability in fragile areas.

Just last week, the WFP reported it urgently needs $130 million to sustain aid operations in Nigeria, where more than 30 million people are facing severe food shortages.

FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero described Africa’s worsening hunger crisis as “concerning,” pointing to several driving factors: insufficient agricultural output, rapid population growth, persistent conflict, and mounting challenges linked to climate change.

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