Global Hunger Index Finds Hunger Worse in 32 Countries Than in 2018

The world’s score on the 2026 Global Hunger Index is 18.1, up from 17.6 in 2018. Welthungerhilfe and the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict published the index on 14 October. It finds hunger has worsened since 2018 in 32 countries. At current rates, 57 countries won’t reach even a low level of hunger by 2030.

In 2000 the global score stood at 28.2. It fell at every reference point after that, to 25.1 in 2006, 20.1 in 2012 and 17.6 in 2018. The scale runs from 0, meaning no hunger, to 100, so a higher score means more hunger.

This year’s edition carries the title No Security Without Food Security. Its authors argue that security policies focused mainly on military threats can overlook what helps societies withstand crises. “If security is to be lasting, food security must be at its foundation,” they write.

Two measures, pointing different ways

Five UN agencies published their annual food security report on 21 July. It counted about 645 million undernourished people in 2025. That’s 7.8% of the world’s population and 43 million fewer than in 2022. It was the third annual fall in a row.

The Global Hunger Index combines four indicators: undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality. Since 2018, three of them have worsened, and only child mortality has kept falling. The UN figure tracks undernourishment alone and compares 2025 with 2022. Measured against 2018, with three child-health indicators added, the index can rise while the headcount falls.

“The report shows that progress is possible, but we must move faster,” Qu Dongyu, director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, said in July.

Nigeria, Haiti and Syria lead the rises

Nigeria’s score rose by 6.1 points to 34.3, the largest increase of any country since 2018. Timor-Leste, Haiti and Syria come next. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the score climbed 2.9 points to 39.5.

Eight countries now sit in the alarming category. Somalia has the highest score, at 47.0, ahead of the DRC, Chad and Madagascar. Burundi, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen are provisionally rated alarming because data are missing. Seven of the eight are in sub-Saharan Africa, where the regional score rose to 27.5.

Uganda cut its score by 8.0 points over the same period, and Venezuela, Togo, Rwanda and Mozambique each improved by more than five. Welthungerhilfe credits progress in Uganda and Nepal to political stability and steady investment in nutrition, health, education and sanitation.

Conflict at its highest level since 1946

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program recorded 65 state-based armed conflicts in 2025, the most since 1946. Countries in chronic, high-intensity conflict had a median index score of 22.1, in the serious range. Other conflict-affected countries had a median of 14.2, and countries without conflict 9.7.

In 2025, famine was confirmed in parts of Sudan and the Gaza Strip. Shipping disruption in the Strait of Hormuz adds a supply shock. About a third of the world’s seaborne fertiliser trade passes through it, and the report cites a projected 60% surge in urea prices this year.

Defence budgets rise as aid falls

By the end of October 2025, food-crisis responses had received US$10.55bn of the US$29bn required. The report puts that funding back at levels last seen in 2016 and 2017.

Development aid from OECD donors fell 23.1% in real terms in 2025, the largest annual drop on record. World military spending rose for an 11th straight year, to US$2,887bn. Germany’s rose 24%.

“Cutting investment in food security and crisis preparedness today risks creating even greater humanitarian emergencies,” said Mathias Mogge, secretary general of Welthungerhilfe. He wants Germany to reverse its cuts to development and humanitarian aid. The index’s foreword makes the same point about budgets: “How resources are allocated in the name of security must be part of this discussion.”

An El Niño event now forming has a greater than 90% chance of becoming very strong, the report notes, citing US forecasters at NOAA. The UN projects that 510 million to 520 million people could still face hunger in 2030, before counting El Niño. Next year’s editions of both reports will show whether donors’ 2027 budgets slowed the reversal or let it deepen.