FAO · Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity
Severe food insecurity by country
What share of people ran out of food or went a day without eating?
Of the 125 countries compared in 2024, 7 countries shared the lowest reading, 0.6%, and South Sudan had the highest reading, 62.9%. In the middle country the figure was 4.9%. Among the 84 countries measured in every edition since 2015, the middle one moved from 4.4% to 4.9%.
Share
Severe food insecurity · 2024
Key statistic · Health & Wellbeing
7 countries share the lowest value, 0.6% — no single country is named first.
012024 · position · derived
Who leads
The three countries at the lowest end of 125 compared, the three at the other end, and the first on each continent.
Lowest in 2024 · shared
7 countries share the lowest reading, 0.6%
No single country is named first: picking one from a shared value would be a choice the data does not make.
Highest in 2024
South Sudan62.9%
Malawi58.1%
Haiti45.4%
Where a country sits says how it compares with the others measured, and nothing about why.
02Every measured country
Severe food insecurity on a map
Each country is shaded by its value, in five groups holding the same number of countries. Hover a country for its value, or select it to open its profile. Below the map, each continent’s middle country.
Darker is a lower value — the better end.
- 16.4–62.9%
- 6.9–16.2%
- 3.5–6.4%
- 1.7–3.3%
- 0.6–1.6%
- No reading in 2024 (26 measured in an earlier edition)
- Europe
1.8%
the middle country, of 35 measured · 49 members
3 share 0.6%
Albania8.3%Lowest and highest reading in Europe.
- Asia
3.4%
the middle country, of 24 measured · 52 members
3 share 0.6%
Afghanistan30.2%Lowest and highest reading in Asia.
- Oceania
4.8%
the middle country, of 5 measured · 21 members
Australia4.4%
Palau6.9%Lowest and highest reading in Oceania.
- Americas
5.0%
the middle country, of 23 measured · 48 members
Brazil0.6%Haiti45.4%Lowest and highest reading in Americas.
- Africa
16.8%
the middle country, of 38 measured · 55 members
Mali2.4%South Sudan62.9%Lowest and highest reading in Africa.
- Every region
21 sub-regions, lowest middle country first
- Southern Europe
1.6%
the middle country, of 11 measured · 17 members
2 share 0.6%
Albania8.3%Lowest and highest reading in Southern Europe.
- Western Europe
1.7%
the middle country, of 7 measured · 9 members
Luxembourg0.6%2 share 3.3%
Lowest and highest reading in Western Europe.
- Northern Europe
1.9%
the middle country, of 10 measured · 13 members
Lithuania1.2%
United Kingdom4.0%Lowest and highest reading in Northern Europe.
- Western Asia
2.7%
the middle country, of 6 measured · 19 members
Israel0.7%
Lebanon10.2%Lowest and highest reading in Western Asia.
- South-eastern Asia
3.4%
the middle country, of 8 measured · 11 members
Thailand0.6%
Myanmar7.9%Lowest and highest reading in South-eastern Asia.
- South America
4.9%
the middle country, of 10 measured · 12 members
Brazil0.6%2 share 11.0%
Lowest and highest reading in South America.
- Eastern Europe
4.9%
the middle country, of 7 measured · 10 members
Slovakia1.3%
Moldova6.0%Lowest and highest reading in Eastern Europe.
- Southern Asia
5.5%
the middle country, of 5 measured · 9 members
Sri Lanka1.1%Afghanistan30.2%Lowest and highest reading in Southern Asia.
- Central America
7.5%
the middle country, of 6 measured · 8 members
Costa Rica2.3%
Guatemala22.4%Lowest and highest reading in Central America.
- Western Africa
9.0%
the middle country, of 14 measured · 16 members
Mali2.4%
Liberia35.5%Lowest and highest reading in Western Africa.
- Caribbean
16.4%
the middle country, of 5 measured · 24 members
Grenada4.4%Haiti45.4%Lowest and highest reading in Caribbean.
- Eastern Africa
20.9%
the middle country, of 11 measured · 19 members
Mauritius12.2%South Sudan62.9%Lowest and highest reading in Eastern Africa.
- Southern Africa
24.3%
the middle country, of 5 measured · 5 members
South Africa8.4%
Namibia28.1%Lowest and highest reading in Southern Africa.
- Australia and New Zealand
2 of 2 measured — too few for a middle: Australia, New Zealand.
Australia4.4%
New Zealand4.9%Lowest and highest reading in Australia and New Zealand.
- Central Asia
2 of 5 measured — too few for a middle: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan.
Kyrgyzstan0.6%
Tajikistan4.9%Lowest and highest reading in Central Asia.
- Eastern Asia
3 of 8 measured — too few for a middle: Japan, Mongolia, South Korea.
Mongolia0.6%
Japan1.4%Lowest and highest reading in Eastern Asia.
- Micronesia
2 of 7 measured — too few for a middle: Kiribati, Palau.
Kiribati4.8%Palau6.9%Lowest and highest reading in Micronesia.
- Middle Africa
4 of 9 measured — too few for a middle: Angola, Cameroon, Chad, DR Congo.
Angola16.2%
DR Congo43.9%Lowest and highest reading in Middle Africa.
- Northern Africa
4 of 6 measured — too few for a middle: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia.
Algeria4.9%
Libya15.1%Lowest and highest reading in Northern Africa.
- Northern America
2 of 4 measured — too few for a middle: Canada, United States.
United States1.1%
Canada1.9%Lowest and highest reading in Northern America.
- Polynesia
1 of 7 measured — too few for a middle: Samoa.
Samoa4.5%Lowest and highest reading in Polynesia.
03The whole field at once
The spread
125 countries, one dot each, on one scale — further right is a higher value. Half the countries are above 4.9%; a quarter are above 12.3%, and a quarter below 1.9%. The bar in each row marks that continent’s middle country.
04All 151 ever measured
Every country
In order, highest value first — position 1 is the highest value, the way FAO’s own tables read. “=” marks a position shared with another country. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) ranks nobody on this measure; the position is derived here by ordering the published values. It asks people, where the prevalence of undernourishment calculates from national food supply. The two measure hunger from opposite ends and will not agree for any given country. The low end stops at half a percent: FAO publishes smaller readings as “below 0.5”, not as a number, so those countries are left out here rather than shown as zero.
Showing 25 of 151 countries
Values for 2024. The change column compares 2024 with 2023 only; the sparkline covers the recent editions.
052015–2024 · 10 reference years
Over time
Each point is a three-year average, labelled by the middle year of its window. FAO does not publish single-year figures for countries, because samples of about a thousand people are too small to be stable from one year to the next.
- the middle country
- the middle half of countries
- the middle of the 84 countries measured every time
- each continent’s middle country
The same, year by year
| Year | Countries | Middle country | Middle half | Measured every time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 125 | 4.9% | 1.9% – 12.3% | 4.9% |
| 2023 | 125 | 4.7% | 2.2% – 14.9% | 4.6% |
| 2022 | 140 | 5.4% | 2.3% – 13.3% | 5.1% |
| 2021 | 136 | 5.7% | 2.3% – 13.1% | 5.1% |
| 2020 | 133 | 5.6% | 2.2% – 13.6% | 4.9% |
| 2019 | 124 | 5.0% | 1.9% – 12.2% | 4.6% |
| 2018 | 111 | 4.2% | 1.6% – 10.3% | 4.0% |
| 2017 | 107 | 4.0% | 1.4% – 11.3% | 4.0% |
| 2016 | 94 | 3.4% | 1.3% – 12.4% | 3.8% |
| 2015 | 94 | 3.4% | 1.5% – 10.4% | 4.4% |
062023 → 2024
Who rose and fell
The biggest changes in value between the two newest editions — reference years recalculated in one report, not two separate publications. Places are shown second, because they also move when other countries do.
Improved most
before → after
Gambia21.7% → 17.6% · 20th → 21st−4.1
El Salvador15.4% → 12.3% · 28th → 32nd−3.1- Angola19.1% → 16.2% · 23rd → 26th−2.9
Botswana23.3% → 20.4% · 18th → 20th−2.9- Brazil3.1% → 0.6% · 81st → 119th−2.5
Worsened most
before → after
Eswatini22.2% → 25.0% · 19th → 14th+2.8- Malawi55.6% → 58.1% · 2nd → 2nd+2.5
Nigeria24.3% → 26.4% · 17th → 11th+2.1
Madagascar15.4% → 16.9% · 28th → 23rd+1.5- DR Congo42.5% → 43.9% · 4th → 4th+1.4
123 countries were measured in both 2023 and 2024.
07Across every edition
Severe food insecurity in records
The extremes of the statistic. A record reached by more than one country names none of them.
Highest reading on record
65.4%
Population in severe food insecurity (%)
Lowest reading on record
Reached 3 times by 3 countries — shared, so no holder is named
0.5%
Population in severe food insecurity (%)
Biggest improvement between editions
−5.7
38.4% → 32.7%
Biggest decline between editions
+5.8
22.6% → 28.4%
Most improved since first measured
−10.2
35.5% → 25.3%
08The measure
About severe food insecurity
Severe food insecurity is the share of people who ran out of food, or went a whole day without eating, at some point in the year. The FAO gets it by asking them — the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, SDG indicator 2.1.2 — which makes it the human counterpart to its supply-based undernourishment estimate.
What the number is: Population in severe food insecurity (%).
What it does not measure
It records people's own reports of running out of food, not their nutrition; a child can be poorly nourished in a household that never ran out.
09Where it fits
Connections
Its part in the Country Index, the statistics whose values line up most closely with it across countries, and others on the same subject.
In the Country Index
A key statistic for Health & Wellbeing
“The share of people who went without food, established by asking them rather than by modelling the supply.”
- Edition used
- 2024 (data 2024)
- Countries
- 125
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
Moves with
Where severe food insecurity is higher, these tend to be higher too.
- Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food InsecurityFAO · 125 countries in commonρ 0.92
- Prevalence of UndernourishmentFAO · 118 countries in commonρ 0.80
- Infant Mortality RateUN IGME · 125 countries in commonρ 0.77
Moves against
Where severe food insecurity is higher, these tend to be lower.
- Ecological FootprintKeyGlobal Footprint Network · 90 countries in commonρ −0.77
- Inequality-adjusted Human Development IndexUNDP Human Development Report Office · 118 countries in commonρ −0.74
- Access to ElectricityWorld Bank Group · 125 countries in commonρ −0.74
Rank correlation (ρ, from −1 to 1) across countries, on each statistic’s newest edition, out of 324 statistics sharing at least 80 countries with this one. Two statistics that move together do not cause each other.
10Analysis
Charts and analysis on severe food insecurity
11Keep reading
Explore further
The subject
The countries at either end
12Questions
Severe food insecurity: questions and answers
Which country has the lowest severe food insecurity?
7 countries share the lowest reading, 0.6%, among the 125 compared in 2024, so no single country is named.
Which country has the highest severe food insecurity?
South Sudan, at 62.9%, among the 125 countries compared in 2024.
How many countries does the Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity cover?
125 in 2024, and 151 at least once across all editions. The number measured varies from 94 to 140 between editions.
What is the world average severe food insecurity?
This site does not calculate a world average, which would depend on how countries are weighted. In the middle country of the 125 compared in 2024, the figure was 4.9%.
Is this Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)’s own ranking?
No. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) publishes the values but ranks nobody; the position on this page is derived by Nations Inquiry by ordering the published values, and equal values share a position.
How often is the Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity published?
This site holds 10 reference years, 2015–2024, all recalculated in Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)’s 2026 report on one method — not 10 separate publications.
Where does the data come from, and can I download it?
From Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), under CC BY 4.0. FAOSTAT's Suite of Food Security Indicators, read from FAO's own bulk download. The confidence interval, the shares among adult women and adult men, and the number of people are stored beside it. A country absent from an edition was either not surveyed, or measured and found below half a percent. Every edition is on this site’s Datasets pages as a full table, and downloads as a CSV file with every value unrounded.
13Method
Sources, method and citation
Source
Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
FAOSTAT's Suite of Food Security Indicators, read from FAO's own bulk download. The confidence interval, the shares among adult women and adult men, and the number of people are stored beside it. A country absent from an edition was either not surveyed, or measured and found below half a percent.
Newest edition
Report year 2024Data year 2024
Cite the source as: FAO. 2026. FAOSTAT: Suite of Food Security Indicators. Accessed on 3 October 2026. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
Licence: CC BY 4.0, checked 2026-10-03.
How this page reads the numbers
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) ranks nobody on this measure. The position is derived by Nations Inquiry by ordering the published values; equal values share a position.
- Which end is better follows the publisher’s own reading of the measure.
- A country is named at an end only when it holds that value alone. Where several share it, the page says how many and names none first.
- Values are stored exactly as published and trimmed only for display. “The middle country” is the median of the countries measured, not a world average.
The file itself, column by column — where it came from, what each column holds, and every edition as a CSV — is on its dataset page.
Cite this page
Nations Inquiry (2026). Severe food insecurity by country: Prevalence of Severe Food Insecurity, data from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). https://nationsinquiry.com/statistics/severe-food-insecurity