2026 Global Outlook: Hunger and hope: Innovative solutions to address food insecurity
Publication | 18 November 2025
A global food crisis
- In 68 countries in the world
- 318 million people are facing acute hunger
The scale of the current global hunger and malnutrition crisis is enormous. A staggering 318 million people face crisis levels of hunger or worse next year - more than double the figure recorded in 2019 - according to WFP’s 2026 Global Outlook. Two simultaneous famines have been confirmed in parts of Gaza and Sudan – a devastating first this century. Many food crises involve multiple overlapping issues that are building year on year.
What are the main causes of the global food crisis?
Conflict
Nearly 70 percent of acutely food-insecure people lived in fragile or conflict-affected countries in 2025. Violence and instability in the Middle East, East, Central and West Africa as well as in the Caribbean, southern Asia and Eastern Europe are particularly concerning. Conflict disrupts food production, forces people from their homes and sources of income, and often hinders humanitarian access to people in most need.
Climate
The climate crisis is one of the leading causes of the steep rise in global hunger. Climate shocks destroy lives, crops and livelihoods, and undermine people’s ability to feed themselves. Hunger will spiral out of control if the world fails to take immediate climate action.
Economy
Sluggish global growth and economic stressors, linked to slow pandemic recovery and fallout from the war in Ukraine, continue to affect low and middle-income countries. This limits investment in social protection programmes, at a time when food prices remain at crisis levels.
Displacement
Forcibly displaced people face specific vulnerabilities in relation to food insecurity including limited access to employment, livelihoods, food and shelter, and reliance on dwindling humanitarian assistance.
How can we end the global food crisis?
A coordinated effort across governments, financial institutions, the private sector and partners is the only way to end the global food crisis. In countries such as Somalia, the international community came together and managed to pull people back from the brink of famine in 2022.
Political and diplomatic solutions are needed to strengthen peacebuilding efforts and ensure safe and unrestricted access across borders and conflict lines – to save lives and prevent the hunger catastrophe spreading even further.
But it is not sufficient to solely keep people alive. We must go further, and this can only be achieved by addressing the underlying causes of hunger. WFP's work to build resilience, adapt to climate change, promote good nutrition and improve food systems lays the foundations of a more prosperous future for millions.
In just four years, WFP and local communities turned 158,000 hectares of barren fields in the Sahel region of five African countries into farm and grazing land. Our climate-insurance programme – the R4 Rural Resilience initiative – had benefited nearly 550,000 vulnerable households and families in 18 countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean by 2023. At the same time, WFP is working with governments in 83 countries to boost or build national safety nets and nutrition-sensitive social protection, allowing us to reach more people with emergency food assistance.
Lack of funding and access risks a heavy cost
Severe funding shortfalls are forcing WFP to scale back assistance and refocus efforts on the most severe needs. With persistent access constraints also hampering support, some of the most vulnerable people are being left behind.
Unless resources are made available and unrestricted access granted, lost lives and the reversal of hard-earned development gains will be the price to pay.