ROME — A healthy diet remains beyond the financial reach of nearly one in three people worldwide despite a third consecutive annual decline in global hunger, according to a major United Nations report released on Tuesday, underscoring persistent inequalities in access to nutritious food.
The 2026 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, jointly produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization, estimated that about 2.69 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2025. The report said the average global cost of such a diet rose to 4.28 purchasing power parity dollars per person per day.
The agencies said global hunger affected about 645 million people, or 7.8% of the world's population, in 2025, down from 8.1% a year earlier. However, they warned that progress remains uneven and insufficient to meet the United Nations' goal of ending hunger by 2030.
According to the report, Africa faces the greatest affordability challenge, with roughly two-thirds of its population unable to afford a healthy diet. The agencies attributed regional disparities to factors including weak infrastructure, high transport and food distribution costs, conflict, climate-related shocks and broader economic constraints.
The report said that while access to healthy diets has improved in some regions since 2021, child malnutrition, anaemia among women and rising obesity remain major public health concerns. It noted that lowering the cost of nutritious food alone would not be enough without broader improvements in food systems, incomes and social protection.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the report that although progress in reducing hunger was encouraging, "a healthy diet still remains unaffordable for one in three people globally," adding that obesity continues to rise while advances in maternal and child nutrition have slowed.
The agencies called for greater investment in agricultural infrastructure, research, irrigation, cold-chain logistics and food supply networks, alongside policy reforms aimed at improving access to nutritious foods and reducing structural costs across food value chains. They said such measures would help strengthen food security while supporting healthier and more resilient food systems.
