New York - Saba:
A United Nations report revealed that acute food insecurity and child malnutrition exacerbated the suffering of millions of people in some of the world's most vulnerable regions for the sixth consecutive year in 2024.
According to the Global Report on Food Crises, conflicts, economic shocks, extreme climate events, and forced displacement continued to drive food insecurity and malnutrition worldwide, having disastrous effects on many already fragile regions.
According to the report, in 2024, more than 295 million people in 53 countries and territories experienced acute levels of hunger—an increase of 13.7 million people from 2023. Of particular concern is the worsening prevalence of acute food insecurity, which now stands at 22.6 percent of the assessed population. This marks the fifth consecutive year that this figure has remained above 20 percent.
The number of people facing catastrophic hunger (famine)—which is Phase 5 of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification—more than doubled over the same period, reaching 1.9 million people—the highest level recorded since the Global Report on Food Crises began monitoring in 2016.
Malnutrition, particularly among children, reached extremely high levels, including in the Gaza Strip, Mali, Sudan, and Yemen. Nearly 38 million children under the age of five suffered from acute malnutrition in 26 food crises.
The report also highlights a sharp increase in hunger caused by forced displacement, with nearly 95 million forcibly displaced people—including internally displaced persons, asylum seekers, and refugees—living in countries facing food crises such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, Sudan, and Syria, out of a global total of 128 million forcibly displaced people.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said this global report on food crises is "yet another indictment of a world dangerously off track. Long-standing crises are now being exacerbated by a newer crisis: the dramatic decline in life-saving humanitarian funding to respond to these needs. This is more than a failure of systems—it's a failure of humanity. Hunger in the 21st century is untenable. We cannot respond to empty stomachs with empty hands and indifference."
According to the report, conflict remained the primary driver of acute food insecurity, affecting some 140 million people in 20 countries and territories. Famine has been confirmed in Sudan, while other hotspots where people are experiencing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity include the Gaza Strip, South Sudan, Haiti, and Mali.
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