Based on the 1996 World Food Summit, food security is defined when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

The proliferation of conflicts and the multiplication of extreme climate events, against the backdrop of the Covid-19 global economic recession and growing inequalities, has increased rapidly and consistently the number of food insecure people globally, moving further away the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) of ending hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition by 2030.

Decrease in Official Development Assistance (ODA) put an extra burden on global food and nutrition security.

The State of Food Security and Nutrition Report (SOFI) is jointly prepared by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO and informs on the progress towards achieving SDG2. The Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) is prepared by the Global network against Food Crises and informs on the size of the needs in food crises prone areas. These reports indicate a worsening trend of the state of food insecurity worldwide.

According to the latest edition of SOFI 2025, between 638 and 720 million people (7.8 to 8.8 % of the global population) faced hunger in 2024. Despite a decrease of 15 million compared to 2023 and of 22 million compared to 2022, the world is still above pre COVID-19 pandemic level. The progress at global level is driven by improvement in South-eastern Asia, Southern Asia and South America. Unfortunately, hunger rose steadily in most subregions of Africa and in Western Asia. In Africa, one person out of every five still suffers from hunger. About 28% -2.3 billion people- of the global population were moderately or severely food insecure in 2024 (SDG indicator 2.1.2). Worldwide, food insecurity disproportionately affects women and people living in rural areas. In 2024, 2.6 billion people were unable to afford a healthy diet, with a substantial increase in Africa. Among the indicators of child nutritional status, only stunting has undergone a significant change, improving from 26.4 percent in 2012 to 23.2 percent in 2024. Encouragingly, more than half of countries with data to assess progress on child wasting (74 out of 132) are on track to achieve the 2030 target.

The Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) has flagged high levels of acute hunger, consistently above 100 million people and increasing since 2016. The latest 2025 edition estimates that about 295.3 million people in 53 food crisis countries and territories faced high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above or equivalent) and required urgent food assistance in 2023. This represents 22.6% of the population analysed, and is the highest number in the nine-year history of the GRFC and 4.8% higher than the number estimated for the year 2023.

In West Africa, the Sahel and Cameroon, the Food Crises Prevention Network (Reseau de Prevention des Crises alimentaires - RPCA) promotes dialogue and co-ordination, to build a coherent and shared understanding of the region’s food and nutrition situation and to inform decision-making. The Food Aid Charter adopted for the first time in 1990 by Heads of State of CILSS (Comité Permanent Inter-États de Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel) calls for strengthening information systems and dialogue platforms, and to ensure the coherence of interventions, thereby improving the effectiveness of collective action. The Charter is subject to internal and external assessments conducted within the framework of the RPCA.

Humanitarian assistance remains critical to promptly save lives and livelihoods, and alleviate human suffering. The 2024 Report on Financing Flows and Food Crises  presents a quantitative analysis of trends of the humanitarian and development assistance to food sectors globally, and nationally between 2016 and 2022. The Ceres2030 studies underline that donors would need to double their contribution to end hunger and double the incomes of small-scale producers by 2030.

Current high levels of food insecurity and malnutrition call for a transition towards more sustainable and resilient food systems  to ensure access to safe and nutritious food for all, in particular in fragile contexts. The United Nations Food Systems Summit in 2021 (UNFSS) has given birth to an international Coalition for action with this objective. The European Union has adopted an ambitious strategy towards sustainable food systems (Farm to Fork strategy) and is committed to support such transition at global level through its trade policies and international cooperation instruments.

With the objective to provide a rapid overview of main definitions relevant to understanding the key elements of international food security and food crises reporting and response, the Knowledge Centre on Global Food and Nutrition Security has produced a Scientific Brief on Food Security and Food Crises. (cf. document below).