UN Report: Global Food Crises Surge as Funding Collapses

The number of people in the most catastrophic stages of acute hunger has skyrocketed since 2016, even as the money to address it has shrunk, according to a major United Nations report released Friday. Around 1.4 million people were on the verge of starvation last year across six countries and territories, up from 155,000 in 2016, according to the annual Global Report on Food Crises published by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the U.N. World Food Programme. But funding has moved in the opposite direction. Humanitarian and development spending on food crises has collapsed to 2016-2017 levels, the report says, against a backdrop of a nearly 57 percent drop in U.S. foreign aid last year and sweeping cuts in Germany, France, the Netherlands and the U.K. — among others. The report notes that the share of the analyzed population facing high levels of acute hunger has nearly doubled over the same period. "Severe hunger has doubled, and famine has been declared in two places," said WFP's outgoing Executive Director Cindy McCain. "The same countries are caught in a devastating cycle of hunger — fueled by conflict and compounded by inadequate funding." WFP lost more than $2.6 billion and 6,000 jobs last year after the Trump administration dismantled USAID, Washington's main foreign aid agency. Other U.N. agencies, including the FAO, have also been hit hard. Against that backdrop, 266 million people across 47 countries experienced high levels of acute food insecurity in 2025. The report cautions the figure likely understates the true scale because 18 countries lacked usable data, the lowest coverage in a decade. For the first time in the report's 10-year history, famine was confirmed simultaneously in two locations — Gaza and Sudan — both driven by conflict and restricted aid access. "Famine is directly related to conflict," said Rein Paulsen, the FAO's director for emergencies. Conflict was the primary driver of hunger across 19 countries hosting more than 147 million people in need of urgent food assistance, more than half the global total. Looking ahead, the report warns that the Middle East conflict escalation is already disrupting global fertilizer and energy markets, squeezing food import-dependent countries that were in crisis even before the fighting intensified.