UN-backed report says 10 countries hold two-thirds of world’s hungriest people

Hunger tightened its grip on the world’s most vulnerable communities last year, with two-thirds of those facing food crises concentrated in just 10 countries and one-third of them in Sudan, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, a UN-backed annual report said today.

Conflict again stood out as the leading cause of acute food insecurity, according to the Global Report on Food Crises, which draws on data from the United Nations, the European Union and humanitarian agencies.

With wars continuing and climate extremes expected to “likely sustain or worsen conditions in many countries”, the report said the outlook for 2026 was “bleak”.

“Acute food insecurity remains highly concentrated (in) 10 countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, and Yemen,” the report said.

In a first for the report, now in its 10th edition, famine was confirmed in two separate settings in the same year – in Gaza and parts of Sudan.

About 266 million people across 47 countries or territories endured high levels of acute food insecurity last year, the report said, almost double the share recorded in 2016.

It also pointed to a steep drop in international aid and warned that the Middle East war could deepen existing emergencies by swelling displacement in a region already sheltering millions of refugees, while also pushing up fertiliser costs.

The blocking of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil supply route, has caused fertiliser prices to surge because they depend on oil-based inputs.

“Now we’re in planting season,” Alvaro Lario, head of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), said.

“So for sure this current food shock – both with the energy prices going up and also fertilisers going up – I think it’s going to have a massive impact in terms of production,” Mr Lario said.

He urged greater support for small-scale farmers, including investment in crops that can better withstand water stress and climate shocks.

He added that crises could be softened by enabling farmers to produce fertiliser locally and by improving soil health so less of it is required.

IFAD is also working to increase investment from local private sectors.

“Creating the instruments and incentives for the local private sector … is a very important way of making that sustainability and that development money go a longer way,” Mr Lario said.