The top ten causes of world hunger

After years of progress towards ending hunger, it has been on the rise since 2020. A lot of this comes down to a fatal combination of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing climate crisis, and conflict, but that’s not the whole story. 

Updated for 2024, these are the top ten causes of world hunger, and how we’re working to address them. 

Poverty and hunger go hand in hand. Families experiencing poverty usually can’t afford enough food for everyone to eat. If they can, it’s often not food that provides the full range of vitamins and nutrients that people need every day to thrive.

This undernourishment can lead to an intergenerational cycle of poverty. Children who don’t get enough food have greater difficulties focusing in school, which can hinder their chances of getting a complete education and higher-paying job than their parents. Parents who skip meals to make their food stretch may also struggle with work, limiting their earning potential. It’s a vicious cycle.  

We can see the link between poverty and hunger play out at the macro level as well: The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the world’s poorest countries. Last year, nearly 75% of the country’s 102 million residents lived below the poverty line. Earlier this year, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) estimated that 40% of all Congolese were also living below the hunger line in a crisis that is only expected to grow. 

In low-income farming communities, families often experience periods before harvests known as hunger seasons. These are the times of year when food supplies from the previous harvest are used up, but the next harvest is still some time away. This leaves families forced to skip one (or more) meals each day in the period before the next harvest, which could be months away.

We’ve also seen food shortages increase in the last few years in the wake of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis in Ukraine. Both border closures intended to curb the pandemic and trade routes interrupted due to conflict have prevented critical supplies from getting where they’re needed most. More on this below. 

Conflict and hunger form another vicious cycle, both for countries experiencing active conflict and even for those that aren’t. For countries in conflict, violence can lead to the destruction of farmlands, displacement, and people sheltering at home for their own safety. Conflict also leads to high inflation rates that make food available at the market unaffordable for many civilians. 

International conflicts also carry a large impact. Pre-war, Ukraine and Russia exported 25% of the world’s wheat supplies. Countries like Malawi (which has enjoyed relative peace for the last three decades) rely on this region - more than 5,000 miles away - for staples. Conflict has interrupted those supply chains and also contributed to global inflation rates, leaving millions of people without a key lifeline. 

Climate change is also a major cause of hunger, with each shock setting the most vulnerable people and communities further and further back. As we’ve seen in recent years, natural disasters have also become more frequent and more destructive as a result of global warming. 

Extreme climate patterns also tend to have a higher effect on low-income areas of the world. The World Bank estimates that climate change has the power to push more than 100 million people into poverty over the next decade, which in turn will have a direct impact on hunger rates.

We mentioned above that families living in poverty often get food lower in nutrients. That’s because many of these families rely on just one or two staple foods, like corn or wheat, for the majority of their meals. As a result, they don’t get enough critical macronutrients and vitamins. Even if they feel full, they may still be suffering the effects of hunger, particularly malnutrition. 

Nutrition is especially key for child development during the first 1,000 days, between being in the womb and the child's second birthday. If a child suffers chronic malnutrition during this time, they may face a lifetime of health and developmental issues. Likewise, nutrition is also important for maternal health. Pregnant people need even more vitamins and minerals in order to deliver a healthy newborn. If they experience malnutrition during pregnancy or while breastfeeding, they can effectively 'pass on' the effects of those nutritional deficiencies to their infants. 

Systemic problems, like poor infrastructure or low investment in agriculture, often prevent food and water from reaching the populations that need them the most. This is especially true in fragile contexts, which is why many of the hungriest countries in the world are also experiencing some form of political instability. 

Often in these cases, health and nutrition is not the top priority for policy-makers. If resources are limited, leaders often focus these on the most pressing emergencies. Unfortunately, hunger is often a silent crisis in these cases. With decades of crisis in Somalia for example, the recent Horn of Africa drought carried an even larger impact on millions who faced hunger as a result. The issue wasn’t just failed crops or climate displacement, but a much larger contextual problem. 

After two civil wars and the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak, Liberia’s economy was left weakened by back-to-back crises. Eight years after the end of the Ebola epidemic, more than 50% of Liberians still live below the poverty line. It also ranks as the ninth hungriest country in the world, with a 2023 Global Hunger Index score of 32.2.

Inflation as the result of a bad economy means that, even if food is available and people have jobs, they may not be able to afford even the most basic staples. Last year, for example, the cost of an emergency food basket rose by 66% in Ethiopia.

According to the World Food Programme, over 1 billion tonnes of food produced is never consumed. That’s equivalent to us throwing out one-third of the global food supply every year. 

What’s more, producing this wasted food also uses other natural resources that, when threatened, have a ripple effect in the countries that are already hit hardest by hunger, poverty, and climate change. Producing this wasted food requires an amount of water equal to the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River, and the emission of nearly 3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

The UN notes that if female farmers had the same access to resources as their male counterparts, the number of hungry people in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million. Female farmers are responsible for growing, harvesting, preparing, and selling the majority of food in poor countries, and they’re just one example of the many ways that hunger is a women’s issue. 

Women are on the frontlines of the fight against hunger, yet they are frequently underrepresented at the forums where important decisions on policy and resources are made.

Hunger can be a cause of forced migration. Forced migration can also be a cause of hunger. Refugees and internally-displaced people living in displacement camps or informal communities are often legally or linguistically prevented from getting work to support their families while away from home (many refugees are also women and children, which means their options are even more limited). 

Many refugees live in neighbouring countries, countries with limited resources to begin with. Some of the hungriest countries in the world are also among the largest host communities or have high rates of internal displacement. Food aid helps, but the problem of hunger and migration can only be resolved with a political solution. 

From Afghanistan to Yemen, Concern’s Health and Nutrition programmes are designed to address the specific, intersectional causes of hunger and malnutrition in each specific context. Our projects often combine two or more of the following areas of focus: agriculture and climate response, maternal and child health, education, livelihoods, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). 

We played a key role in developing Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM), which has been recognised by the World Food Programme as the gold standard for treating malnutrition. Other recent successes, like Lifesaving Education and Assistance to Farmers (LEAF) have seen entire communities not needing humanitarian food aid for the first time in decades due to holistic and systemic shifts in agricultural practices and community care. 

You can help us in the fight against hunger. Last year alone, Concern reached 9 million people with health and nutrition programmes in 21 countries. Your support can help us to do even more in the year ahead.