Nutrition
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Gaza’s worsening food crisis and troubled path to reconstruction
As the Israel-Hamas conflict rages on in the Gaza Strip, the territory’s entire population of more than 2 million remains under threat of severe food crisis. The latest alert from the IPC Integrated Phase Classification for Acute Food Insecurity reports that one in five people in the Gaza Strip—upwards of 500,000—are on the brink of starvation (IPC Phase 5 Catastrophe) due to the March 18, 2025 end of the ceasefire and the resumption of blockades of humanitarian aid and commercial supplies.
The world is nowhere near the goal of zero hunger by 2030 amid uncertain global development financing. What now?
In the wake of a series of recent crises that drove up global hunger and food insecurity, the world remains far off track in meeting Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2)—ending hunger and malnutrition by 2030. Now, in a chaotic global environment of still more crises and complications, including cuts in official development assistance, what is the best course forward for governments and development organizations to address these urgent problems?
Rising food insecurity, waning humanitarian assistance: 2025 Global Report on Food Crises released
The world faced a stark inflection point in 2024, as the continued rise in the number of people facing crisis-to-catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity meets sharp reductions in funding for humanitarian assistance. The 2025 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), released today, reports that 295.3 million people across 53 countries/territories faced acute food insecurity in 2024. This represents a tripling of the number of people facing acute hunger since 2016 and a doubling since 2020 (Figure 1).
Figure 1
The Connection Between Climate Change and Malnutrition
Climate change, malnutrition, and poor diets are interconnected. Without well-financed climate change adaptation plans and strategies global nutrition disparities could worsen.
Rising food prices are putting children in harm’s way
The real price of food has risen dramatically in 21st century, with the FAO food price index peaking at an all-time high in March 2022 at 116% above its 2000 value (Figure 1). While food inflation has long been a cause of concern for nutrition agencies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), new evidence is shedding light on the potential impacts of rising food prices on child malnutrition in LMICs.
Figure 1