Global hunger is on a downward trend for the second consecutive year, according to the 2025 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI). The report, launched at the Second UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake (UNFSS+4) in Addis Ababa, estimates that 8.2% of the world’s population (about 673 million people) faced hunger in 2024. This represents a reduction of 15 million compared to the previous year, and 22 million fewer than in 2022.
Despite these improvements, hunger levels remain above pre-pandemic figures. Most of the progress has been concentrated in Southern Asia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, while hunger continues to rise in Africa and Western Asia. In Africa alone, over 20% of the population (307 million people) are still affected by hunger, underscoring significant regional disparities.
The SOFI report is jointly produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Food insecurity remains widespread
Although undernourishment has slightly declined, broader indicators show continued vulnerability. In 2024, about 2.3 billion people (nearly 28% of the global population) experienced moderate or severe food insecurity. That’s 335 million more than in 2019, and 683 million more than in 2015, the year the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted.
Projections suggest that by 2030, 512 million people could still be chronically undernourished, nearly 60% of them in Africa. These findings cast doubt on the feasibility of achieving SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) by the end of the decade.
Challenges to affordability and access
One major obstacle to food security recovery has been food price inflation. Between 2021 and 2023, many low-income countries saw food inflation soar, peaking at 30% in May 2023. While globally the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet decreased from 2.76 billion in 2019 to 2.6 billion in 2024, this number rose significantly in Africa, from 464 million to 545 million.
SOFI 2025 recommends a mix of targeted fiscal policies, strengthened social protection, and sustained investment in resilient, inclusive agrifood systems — especially infrastructure and innovation — to ensure access to healthy diets for all.
Brazil: a case study in rapid progress
Among the success stories presented in the report is Brazil, which has officially been removed from the UN Hunger Map, with its share of undernourished people falling below the FAO’s 2.5% threshold (based on the 2022–2024 average). The achievement was confirmed during the launch of SOFI 2025 in Ethiopia.
According to Brazil’s Ministry of Social Development and Fight Against Hunger, 24 million people were lifted out of severe food insecurity by the end of 2023, and extreme poverty fell to 4.4%, while unemployment reached a historic low of 6.6%. Over 1.27 million of the 1.7 million formal jobs created in 2024 were filled by people registered in the government’s social registry – the majority of them Bolsa Família recipients.
“This was President Lula’s first and foremost goal when he took office in January 2023: to remove Brazil from the Hunger Map by 2026,” said Minister Wellington Dias. “We achieved it in just two years, through robust public policies and the Brazil Without Hunger Plan. But this is only the beginning. We seek food justice and sovereignty for all.”
This is the second time Brazil has exited the Hunger Map under President Lula’s leadership. The first was in 2014. After social policy dismantling led to Brazil’s return to the map between 2018 and 2020, the country once again reversed course through coordinated social, economic, and agricultural strategies.
During its G20 presidency in 2024, Brazil launched the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty. “Brazil’s achievement is not just important for Brazil. It demonstrates that ending hunger quickly is possible. The path is clear: strong public policies, social participation, a focus on the most vulnerable, and above all, political will and appropriate funding to implement these programs,” said Minister Dias. “This is the approach of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty”.
Check out the full speech by the Brazilian Minister of Social Development and Fight Against Hunger, Wellington Dias:
- Her Excellency, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed
- President of Ethiopia, Táí Atské Selassié
- Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni
- FAO Director-General, Qu Dongyu
- IFAD President, Alvaro Lario
- WFP Executive Director, Cindy McCain
- FAO Chief Economist, Máximo Torero
- Ms. Fiona Naringwa, our moderator
- Ladies and gentlemen, delegates and representatives
- Ladies and gentlemen joining us here and online
It is an immense honor, and a tremendous responsibility, to share this stage with such distinguished leaders and authorities to close an event addressing the most urgent and painful of issues: hunger.
Since 2015, when the SDGs were approved by the UN, the world has seen rising levels of hunger and poverty, growing from 600 million people experiencing hunger in 2015 to 750 million in 2022. In 2024, however, global hunger has declined to an estimated 673 million people.
Since Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva launched the proposal to revive the 2030 SDG Agenda, especially Goals 1 and 2, at the G20 in New Delhi in 2023, along with the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, the issue has regained prominence in several countries, supported by knowledge-sharing and financial contributions.
Since 2023, hunger has stopped increasing, and food insecurity has begun to fall again, along with poverty. South America, Southeast Asia, and South Asia have driven this global improvement, but we must support our brothers and sisters in Africa, West Asia, and the Caribbean to achieve the same results.
Amid so many disheartening headlines, often impacting the most vulnerable, it is heartening to hear numbers that bring us a glimmer of hope.
That glimmer is this: global hunger is falling again even amidst so many crises and conflicts, with an estimated 673 million people currently affected. If we look just at the global numbers, this is a very, very slow and uneven fall. At that pace, we will take more than 60 years to end hunger, and, in 2030, when the SDGs are due, more than Half a billion people will still suffer from this scourge, as others have pointed out, and most of them in Africa.
But I believe I was invited here to bring a message of hope and, together with you, to help chart a path forward.
Today’s report brings some good news if we look at specific regions. We are seeing solid progress in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and my own South America, where malnutrition has been cut in half over the last two decades, from 8% to 4% of the population. In particular, the report brings excellent news about Brazil.
It gives me great satisfaction to speak about this achievement and to recognize the work of an unrelenting champion in the fight against hunger, a man who experienced hunger in his own childhood, overcame it, and then helped lift an entire nation out of it. That man is once again our President: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
President Lula, we know how the policies you led during your first term enabled Brazil to be removed from the Hunger Map in 2014, only to return in 2021, after your successors failed to value those hard-earned lessons.
President Lula, when you took office again in 2023, you promised the Brazilian people, and the world, that Brazil would once again be removed from the Hunger Map. The first time, it took 11 years. This time, under your leadership and with the hard work and collaboration of many, it has taken just two and a half years. According to the SOFI 2025 report, Brazil is once again off the Hunger Map.
The report shows that the average for the past three years places Brazil below 2.5% prevalence of undernourishment. This achievement means Brazil is officially off the Hunger Map. I know the current numbers are even better, as the report still includes data from the previous administration’s final year. We will continue to improve our policies until not a single person in Brazil has to worry whether they will be able to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner or whether they can feed their children with dignity.
My friends, Brazil’s achievement is not just important for Brazil. It demonstrates—alongside progress in Latin America and Southeast Asia, that ending hunger quickly is possible.
The path is clear: strong public policies, social participation, a focus on the most vulnerable, and above all, political will and appropriate funding to implement these programs. These include social protection programs, support for family farming, healthy and sustainable food systems, school feeding, child nutrition, employment generation, and entrepreneurship. Together, they do more than end hunger, they reduce poverty and promote human dignity.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the approach of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty.
Based on President Lula’s vision, the Global Alliance was created to support countries in mobilizing and aligning resources around policies that already work, led by national governments.
Today, the Alliance brings together 193 members, including 101 countries and 92 institutions: international organizations, development banks, financial institutions, and civil society organizations.
What makes the Alliance unique is its focus on implementation. It does not create plans from scratch. It seeks to unlock the potential of existing strategies, plans, and policies, ones that are proven, scalable, and aligned with national priorities, but often constrained by fragmented international cooperation or lack of financing.
We know what works. The Alliance’s Policy Basket was built precisely on this evidence. What countries need now is predictable and coordinated funding to scale up these solutions. The Global Alliance is a concrete tool to make this happen, bringing together public policies, financing, and partnerships to support those who need it most.
The Alliance is already supporting countries through Fast-Track Implementation Plans aimed at combating hunger and poverty.
Thirteen countries are part of this initiative, promoting rural economic inclusion in Ethiopia, Rwanda, and the Dominican Republic; early childhood social protection in Palestine and Tanzania; and cash transfers in Zambia and Haiti, among others.
But the Alliance is all of us. I invite every organization, every multilateral bank, and every country to contribute, starting with these first Fast-Track plans.
If we can secure the necessary support to turn these plans into reality, and inspire more countries to implement evidence-based hunger and poverty reduction programs, I will hold on to hope: we will not have to wait 60 years to end world hunger. Because hunger is urgent.
Finally, I leave you with two invitations:
First, join us on November 3 in Doha, Qatar, for the First Global Alliance Leaders’ Meeting, which will take place during the Second World Summit on Social Development.
Second, come to COP30, in Belém, Brazil. There, we will move forward with a Leaders’ Declaration that reaffirms what we already know: the fight against climate change is the same fight against hunger and poverty.
Hunger is not a fate, it is a political choice. The recognition by UN Secretary-General António Guterres of the Global Alliance confirms that we are on the right path, bringing countries together to uphold the human right to food. As Guterres aptly said: “The future of food is the future of humanity.”
We cannot tolerate hunger being used as a weapon of war, nor accept that food crises be seen solely as a matter of production. Hunger is, clearly, a matter of social justice.
Thank you very much.
