Conflict and climate crisis push 266m into acute food insecurity
Two-thirds of people facing food crises globally last year lived in just 10 countries, with a third of them in Sudan, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
ROME: Two-thirds of people facing food crises globally last year lived in just 10 countries, with a third of them in Sudan, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, a UN-backed yearly report said on Friday.
Conflict remained the main driver of acute food insecurity, according to the Global Report on Food Crises, based on data from the UN, the EU, and humanitarian agencies.
And with conflicts and climate extremes 'likely to sustain or worsen conditions in many countries,' the outlook for 2026 is 'bleak,' it said.
The report highlighted that acute food insecurity remains highly concentrated in 10 countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, and Yemen.
Improvements in some countries, such as Bangladesh and Syria, were 'almost fully offset by notable deteriorations' in Afghanistan, DRC, Myanmar, and Zimbabwe.
For the first time in the report’s 10th edition, famine was confirmed in two separate contexts — in Gaza and parts of Sudan — in the same year.
Around 266 million people in 47 countries or territories experienced high levels of acute food insecurity last year, nearly double the share recorded in 2016, the report said.
It also warned about the sharp decline in international aid and said the Middle East war risked aggravating existing crises by increasing the number of displaced in a region already hosting millions of refugees, and driving up fertilizer costs.
The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil supply route, has sent fertilizer prices soaring, as fertilizers rely on oil-based inputs.
'Now we’re in planting season,' said Alvaro Lario, head of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD.
'So for sure this current food shock — both with the energy prices going up and also fertilizers going up — I think it’s going to have a massive impact in terms of production,' Lario said.
He called for more help to small-scale farmers, for example, by investing in water- and climate-resilient crops.
Crises could be eased by farmers producing fertilizer locally and improving soil health so that less fertilizer is needed, he added.
IFAD is also working to boost investment from the local private sector.
'Creating the instruments and incentives for the local private sector ...
is a very important way of making that sustainability and that development money go a long way,' Lario said.
Conflict remained the main driver of acute food insecurity, according to the Global Report on Food Crises, based on data from the UN, the EU, and humanitarian agencies.
And with conflicts and climate extremes 'likely to sustain or worsen conditions in many countries,' the outlook for 2026 is 'bleak,' it said.
The report highlighted that acute food insecurity remains highly concentrated in 10 countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, and Yemen.
Improvements in some countries, such as Bangladesh and Syria, were 'almost fully offset by notable deteriorations' in Afghanistan, DRC, Myanmar, and Zimbabwe.
For the first time in the report’s 10th edition, famine was confirmed in two separate contexts — in Gaza and parts of Sudan — in the same year.
Around 266 million people in 47 countries or territories experienced high levels of acute food insecurity last year, nearly double the share recorded in 2016, the report said.
It also warned about the sharp decline in international aid and said the Middle East war risked aggravating existing crises by increasing the number of displaced in a region already hosting millions of refugees, and driving up fertilizer costs.
The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil supply route, has sent fertilizer prices soaring, as fertilizers rely on oil-based inputs.
'Now we’re in planting season,' said Alvaro Lario, head of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD.
'So for sure this current food shock — both with the energy prices going up and also fertilizers going up — I think it’s going to have a massive impact in terms of production,' Lario said.
He called for more help to small-scale farmers, for example, by investing in water- and climate-resilient crops.
Crises could be eased by farmers producing fertilizer locally and improving soil health so that less fertilizer is needed, he added.
IFAD is also working to boost investment from the local private sector.
'Creating the instruments and incentives for the local private sector ...
is a very important way of making that sustainability and that development money go a long way,' Lario said.
