Highlights:

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warn that acute food insecurity is likely to worsen across 16 countries and territories between November 2025 and May 2026, prompting an early warning for urgent humanitarian action in these identified hunger hotspots.

Compared with the previous edition of the report, the Sudan, Palestine, South Sudan, Mali and Haiti remain at the highest concern level, requiring the most urgent attention. Yemen has been elevated to the hotspots of highest concern. This category includes hotspots facing Famine or risk of Famine, as well as populations already in Catastrophe, or hotspots at risk of deteriorating towards catastrophic conditions. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar and Nigeria remain hotspots of very high concern. Somalia and the Syrian Arab Republic have been elevated to this category, together with Afghanistan, which has re-entered the list of hotspots following its last appearance in November 2023. Burkina Faso and Chad remain hotspots, with Kenya and the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh added to the list.

Armed conflict and violence remain the primary driver of acute food insecurity, affecting 14 of the 16 contexts, including every hotspot of highest concern. Global economic fragility, high debt burdens and uneven recovery are also expected to continue deepening acute food insecurity across several hotspots. Beyond conflict and economic crises, weather extremes and increased climate variability are further exacerbating acute food insecurity.

By late 2025, the international community faces a narrowing window of opportunity to prevent mass starvation and widespread deaths. Famines are never inevitable – they are almost always foreseeable, preventable and driven by human actions.  Pre-emptive, coordinated humanitarian responses are essential to saving lives, protecting livelihoods and preventing further destabilization.

Against this background, funding for food, emergency agriculture and nutrition assistance remains critically insufficient. This threatens to deepen acute food insecurity and malnutrition, and leave millions without life-saving support. Programme coverage by humanitarian actors has been severely reduced, and rations have been sharply cut, forcing reductions even for highly vulnerable populations. Reduced treatment for acute malnutrition is also likely to leave millions of children at heightened risk of disease and death. At the same time, the capacity of humanitarian actors to accurately collect and analyse reliable food security and nutrition data may weaken over time.

Targeted humanitarian action is urgently needed to save lives and livelihoods across all hunger hotspots and is critical in those of highest concern to prevent starvation and further loss of life. At the same time, substantially greater investment in anticipatory action is needed to mitigate emerging needs and reduce the impact of disasters.