A Century Away from Zero Hunger: What the 2025 Global Hunger Index Tells Us About the Politics of Food Insecurity
- Cedric Habiyaremye
- Oct 9
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 10
Despite two decades of progress tracking, the world’s fight against hunger has stalled — not for lack of knowledge, but for lack of will.
The 2025 Global Hunger Index (GHI), marking two decades of tracking global food security, offers little reason for celebration. Instead, it delivers a sobering reminder that the world’s progress toward ending hunger has stalled.
After a decade of steady improvement, the global GHI score has barely moved—18.3 in 2025, down only slightly from 19.0 in 2016. The world remains in the moderate hunger category, but the pace of change is glacial. At the current trajectory, low hunger might not be reached until the year 2137, more than a century after the world’s 2030 target of Zero Hunger.
This stagnation reflects not only the convergence of crises—conflict, climate, and inequality—but also a deeper erosion of political will and accountability. Hunger persists, not because the solutions are unknown, but because the global response has lost momentum.
A Crisis of Inequality and Priorities
The report paints a picture of widening disparities and deepening fragility.
Hunger is classified as serious or alarming in 42 countries, with seven: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Madagascar, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen at alarming levels.
In 27 countries, hunger has increased since 2016, reversing earlier gains. Data gaps in fragile states such as Sudan, DPR Korea, and the occupied Palestinian territories mask the full extent of the crisis, though available evidence suggests conditions are far worse than official data capture.
The drivers are interconnected. Armed conflict remains the single greatest source of hunger, fueling 20 food crises and affecting nearly 140 million people in the past year alone. The wars in Gaza and Sudan demonstrate how violence devastates both livelihoods and lifelines. Famine-level hunger in these settings has more than doubled between 2023 and 2024.
Meanwhile, 2024 was the hottest year on record, signaling that climate change is now a constant—not cyclical—threat. Droughts, floods, and crop failures are intensifying across regions already struggling with economic fragility and political instability. Together, these forces form a feedback loop of vulnerability that traps communities in hunger and poverty.
Lessons from Those Who Moved the Needle
Despite grim statistics, the GHI highlights examples of progress that prove hunger can be reduced with the right mix of leadership, local action, and sustained investment.
Countries like Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Togo, and Uganda have achieved notable improvements since 2016, largely through community-driven programs, policy coherence, targeted nutrition interventions, and sustained investments.
In Ethiopia, the Seqota Declaration, anchored in high-level political ownership and multisectoral coordination, has become a national model for reducing child stunting. In Nepal, the constitutional recognition of the Right to Food has led to new social protection programs and community nutrition schemes. In Liberia, a cross-sector strategy addressing both acute and chronic malnutrition is being implemented through local partnerships and public engagement.
These cases share a common denominator: leadership accountability and locally grounded implementation where communities are empowered to shape solutions. Where governments champion hunger reduction as a national priority and back it with resources, progress follows.
The Missing Ingredient: Political Will
A striking theme running through the 2025 GHI is the gap between policy frameworks and implementation. Global leaders have endorsed countless commitments from the Sustainable Development Goals to the UN Food Systems Summit declarations, but the translation of intent into action remains inconsistent.
The report’s expert voices echo this frustration.
Joachim von Braun reminds us that data without political accountability achieves little.
Carolina Trivelli, former Minister of Social Inclusion in Peru, notes that the GHI’s value lies in showing long-term trajectories— “not just where we are, but where we came from.”
Nitya Rao underscores the need for gender justice—recognition, redistribution, and representation as central to lasting progress.
Dan Smith of SIPRI calls for peace-oriented food system interventions that address the two-way relationship between conflict and hunger.
Tom Arnold and Kaosar Afsana stress the need to treat all forms of malnutrition; undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight, and obesity as one integrated challenge.
Their insights converge on one message: hunger is not an outcome of ignorance but of inaction. Knowledge exists, tools exist, but the political incentives to act decisively remain weak.
From Measurement to Movement
The GHI’s twentieth edition is not just a statistical record; it is a mirror reflecting the evolution of global hunger strategies. Over the past two decades, the focus has shifted from productivity-centered agriculture to rights-based, inclusive, and resilience-driven approaches.
Today’s food security agenda emphasizes governance, equity, and systemic transformation. Yet, the fundamental challenge persists: how to translate global frameworks into locally meaningful action.
Tracking data alone cannot feed people. Progress depends on implementation ecosystems that integrate policy, finance, and community capacity. It also depends on how leaders frame hunger: as a technical issue to be managed, or as a moral and political emergency demanding sustained commitment.
Breaking the Hunger–Conflict Nexus
Among the report’s strongest messages is a call to confront hunger as both a consequence and a weapon of war. The deliberate starvation of civilians seen in multiple conflicts violates international law and human decency.
The GHI urges world leaders to enforce UN Resolution 2417, which condemns the use of hunger as a method of warfare, and to hold perpetrators accountable. It also advocates for risk-informed, anticipatory action; protecting lives and livelihoods before crises reach catastrophic levels.
Preventing hunger in conflict settings requires bridging the humanitarian-development divide, investing in early warning systems, and ensuring aid reaches communities even amid instability. Food security must be part of peacebuilding, not a task deferred until peace arrives.
Three Policy Imperatives for Global Action
The 2025 GHI outlines a path forward through three core imperatives:
Leave No One Behind
Governments must secure political leadership for inclusive, resilient, and sustainable food systems that recognize the right to food as a legal and moral obligation. Investment should prioritize climate-resilient agriculture, ecosystem restoration, and women and youth participation across the value chain.
Strengthen National Commitment and Local Implementation
Hunger reduction must be elevated to a head-of-state priority. Countries need high-level offices dedicated to coordination, monitoring, and accountability (Institutionalize joint accountability platforms where governments, civil society, and communities can evaluate outcomes together). Data-driven joint planning between government, civil society, and communities should inform resource allocation and policy design.
Break the Cycle of Conflict and Hunger
Peacebuilding and food systems must be integrated. International actors should redirect financing from reactive aid to proactive resilience-building, ensuring that hunger is never again used as a weapon of war.
Reclaiming the Promise of Zero Hunger
Twenty years after the first Global Hunger Index, the world stands at a crossroads. Hunger has declined dramatically since 2000, but progress has stalled where it matters most: among the poorest and most conflict-affected communities.
The GHI’s data reveal a deeper truth: humanitarian aid is declining while military spending is rising. This inversion of priorities signals a dangerous moral drift. Achieving Zero Hunger by 2030 is no longer a matter of technical capacity; it is a matter of collective will.
To recommit to Zero Hunger means aligning politics with purpose, financing with equity, and measurement with accountability. It means seeing hunger not as inevitable, but as intolerable.
If the world acts with renewed determination guided by evidence, anchored in justice, and led by inclusive governance, 2030 can still mark a turning point. If not, the dream of Zero Hunger will slip another century into the future.
