Nutrition

Drought, unpredictable rainfall patterns, high and rising food prices, and continued conflict and internal displacement are driving acute food insecurity in Mozambique. A new IPC alert released last week reports that between April and September 2025, more than 2 million people have experienced IPC Level 3 food insecurity and 143,000 people have experienced IPC Phase 4 food insecurity and malnutrition.

In recent years, it has become increasingly recognized that true food and nutrition security depend not just on consumption of an adequate caloric quantity of food but also on consumption of the right types of food. A healthy diet—which the WHO and FAO define as one characterized by adequate, balanced, moderate, and diverse consumption of safe foods and beverages—is essential in supporting long-term physical and cognitive health, development, and well-being and in preventing diseases and damaging nutrient imbalances.

Conflict, extreme weather events, and economic shocks led to worsening food security outcomes throughout much of Africa south of the Sahara in 2024, according to the recently released 2025 Global Report on Food Crises. While a number of countries saw improvements in their levels of acute food insecurity, all regions saw an overall increase in the number of acute food-insecure people.

Climate change impacts—including increasing temperatures, shifting rainfall patterns, and intensifying extreme weather events—have hit Nigeria hard, reducing agricultural productivity, driving up food prices, and limiting access to nutritious food. Climate-related damage to roads, irrigation, education, and health care infrastructure has also undermined food production and access to essential services.

The world faced a stark inflection point in 2024, as the continued rise in the number of people facing crisis-to-catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity meets sharp reductions in funding for humanitarian assistance. The 2025 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), released today, reports that 295.3 million people across 53 countries/territories faced acute food insecurity in 2024. This represents a tripling of the number of people facing acute hunger since 2016 and a doubling since 2020 (Figure 1).

Figure 1