GNV News, August 3, 2025

From July 27 to 29, 2025, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the second stocktaking conference (UNFSS+4) of the United Nations Food Systems Summit, which began in 2021, was held. At this conference, the “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI 2025)” report was also released, revealing that the world’s hungry population in 2024 was about 673 million (8.2% of the global population), a slight decrease from the previous year. However, while there are signs of progress in Asia and Latin America, hunger is worsening in Africa and Western Asia, and in particular in Africa, more than 307 million people—equivalent to 20% of the population—are facing chronic undernourishment, as reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), showing the current situation that uneven access to food across regions persists.

First held in 2021, the Food Systems Summit aimed to comprehensively address global food issues and was the world’s first conference on “food systems,” the series of processes needed to produce, process, and deliver food to consumers. This time is the second stocktaking meeting, following 2023, aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a 2030 deadline. The meeting focused on three goals: (1) organizing member states’ target-setting, achievements, and challenges and documenting progress; (2) tracking progress and strengthening accountability for challenges; and (3) advancing investment in transforming food systems by scaling up solutions and public–private cooperation.

Behind food insecurity are conflicts, climate change, and the sustained surge in food prices since the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hindered low-income groups’ access to healthy diets. It has also been pointed out that by 2030, roughly 60% of people expected to be chronically undernourished worldwide could be concentrated in Africa. The report recommends combining support for vulnerable groups, transparency in monetary policy, and investment in agriculture so that everyone can access adequate, safe, and nutritious food, while at the same time sounding the alarm that funding shortfalls are worsening and, if assistance is cut off, tens of millions will face crisis.

Learn more about global food shortages → “Global food shortages: What goes unreported”

Learn more about challenges from the perspective of food production → “The impacts of food production on the planet”

Photo: Scene from the second stocktaking meeting of the UN Food Systems Summit (ILRI / Flickr [BY-NC-ND 4.0])