A new U.N. report shows global hunger declined in 2024, but not in every region. Jessica Fanzo, professor of climate and food at Columbia University, joins CBS News to break down the findings.

Manhattan

A new United Nations report shows that global hunger rates declined in 2024, with about 8.2% of the world's population experiencing hunger, down from 8.5% the previous year. This annual assessment, compiled by five U.N. agencies, notes significant improvements in regions such as Asia—driven largely by progress in India—and in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.

However, the report also reveals that hunger increased in Africa and Western Asia, where over 20% and 13% of their populations, respectively, faced food insecurity. The study highlights that rural populations and women are disproportionately affected, and that the cost of a healthy diet remains prohibitively high for 2.6 billion people, especially in low-income countries. Food price inflation, conflict, and climate events are cited as major contributing factors, and experts call for structural reforms and community action to address these persistent challenges.

Global hunger dropped in 2024, but rose in Africa and Western Asia

A new United Nations report shows global hunger declined in 2024. Five U.N. agencies, including UNICEF and the World Health Organization, published the annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report on Monday. It finds that about 673 million people, or 8.2% of the global population, experienced hunger last year. That's down from 8.5% in 2023. However, not every region showed a decrease. In Africa, hunger affected more than 20% of the population in 2024. And in Western Asia, about 13% of the population also faced hunger. For more to discuss, let's bring in Jessica Fonzo. She's a professor of climate and food at Columbia University. Jessica has also served as an advisor for several international groups, including the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, which helped publish this report. Jessica, thank you for being here today. Thanks for having me. So where are we seeing the most improvements, and why? Yeah, so it's been quite uneven in the progress towards reducing hunger. In some places, like in Asia, largely because of India. In places in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly South America, we've seen big improvements. But places like Africa and Western Asia, we're seeing declines in progress towards reducing hunger. We're also seeing mixed results in urban versus rural places. Rural people are disproportionately impacted by hunger. Women are disproportionately impacted by hunger. So we're seeing this very uneven progress in the fight against hunger. Well, speaking of uneven progress, talking about the cost of things really has a bearing on the outcomes of this result. The report also finds that more people were able to afford a healthy diet in 2024 compared to four years ago. However, the cost of a healthy diet was higher in low-income countries. We're talking about Afghanistan, Ethiopia, as opposed to high-income countries. What contributes, what creates this wide disparity? Yeah, that's right. So 2.6 billion people still cannot afford what is considered a healthy diet, one that meets nutrient needs and is health-protective. Foods like fruits, vegetables, animal-sourced foods are incredibly expensive, whereas ultra-processed foods, foods high in sugar, salts, and fats and additives, are very cheap, and they're replacing these healthy foods. A lot of that is because of food price inflation. Since 2020, food price inflation was 2%. Now it's 13.5%. It's accelerating rapidly, and that's for many reasons. One, of course, is conflict. We're seeing conflicts all over the world, Gaza, Sudan. Right. Extreme events, coming out of the pandemic, certain fiscal policies to help recover from that pandemic, and it's exacerbating food prices all around the world. So we felt that inflation here in the U.S. It's also global. Absolutely. What can be done to ensure people have enough to eat? What can citizens do to step up? Well, we know that if we do the same as what we're doing now, by 2030, 500 million people will still suffer from hunger, and that's not really thinking about the acceleration of climate, the potential conflicts and geopolitical strife that the world is dealing with now. And the hunger crisis is part of a larger, broader polycrisis, and structural reforms have to happen from governments. That means social protection policies need to be in place, investing in food supply chain infrastructure, ensuring trade embargoes and exportation issues are resolved between countries. Communities, people can invest in the international organizations that are delivering food to the local food banks or to those who are suffering right now very drastically in places like Gaza and Sudan, so supporting World Food Program, World Central Kitchen. All of these organizations every day are fighting the good fight to feed people. And just working at your local food banks, working in your community gardens, ensuring that your community, your tribe is getting access to healthy food in your local community is so central. That's really important insight. Thank you so much, Jessica Fonzo, for coming in and sharing this with us today. We appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

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