The SOFI 2026 report, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, presents a mixed picture: while hunger has declined slightly worldwide, malnutrition remains a widespread, structural and deeply unequal challenge.
In 2025, 645 million people were still experiencing hunger, representing 7.8% of the world’s population, compared with 8.6% in 2022. However, progress remains insufficient to achieve the Zero Hunger goal by 2030.
Beyond food availability, the report highlights a central issue: economic access to a healthy and diverse diet. Today, 2.7 billion people worldwide cannot afford a healthy diet.
The global average cost of a healthy diet reached USD 4.28 in purchasing power parity per person per day in 2025, with significant disparities across regions and countries.
The consequences of this situation particularly affect the most vulnerable populations, especially young children.
In 2025:
These figures highlight the importance of intervening during the first years of life, a critical period for children’s growth, development and future health.
The nutritional situation of women is also concerning. In 2023, 30.7% of women aged 15 to 49 were affected by anaemia, a figure that could rise to 32.6% by 2030 if current trends continue.
Yet women’s nutrition is a crucial lever for breaking the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition.
The SOFI 2026 report highlights a major development: for the first time, Africa has become the continent with the largest number of people affected by hunger.
In 2025:
The projections remain concerning: by 2030, 56% of the people still experiencing hunger could be living in Africa.
These findings confirm the need for approaches adapted to local contexts, combining prevention, nutritional care and the long-term strengthening of food systems.
Against a backdrop of declining public development funding, tackling hunger requires stronger mobilisation from all stakeholders: producers, policymakers, international organisations, humanitarian actors, businesses and nutrition specialists.
Sustainable solutions can emerge only by taking action across the entire value chain, from agricultural production to access to nutrition solutions. Coordination among stakeholders is essential to maximise the impact of the actions undertaken.
Solutions to tackle malnutrition already exist and have demonstrated their effectiveness. For more than 30 years, Plumpy’Nut® has helped save millions of lives around the world. The challenge today is to make these solutions more accessible, improve coordination and deploy them at scale.
Tackling malnutrition is a collective challenge. To achieve the Zero Hunger goal by 2030, collective mobilisation remains more necessary than ever.
