Nutrition

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?

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

Climate change, malnutrition, and poor diets are interconnected. Without well-financed climate change adaptation plans and strategies global nutrition disparities could worsen.

Malnutrition stemming from unhealthy diets is a major food systems challenge impacting the health and well-being of people around the world. High food prices, increasing availability of ultra-processed foods, urbanization, climate change, and other trends have contributed to the overconsumption of unhealthy foods while limiting the accessibility of healthy foods.

Despite some improvements during April and May, the Gaza Strip continues to face catastrophic food insecurity with a high risk of famine, according to the latest assessment of the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC), released on June 25.

The IPC reports that 96% of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million people face high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 4) through September, while 22%, over 495,000 people, face catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 5).