The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) used World Food Day on October 16 to call for early action, innovative ideas and sustained funding, warning that conflict, weather extremes and disruption to global trade are putting food further out of reach for millions of families.
WFP estimates that the 2026-2027 El Niño could push an additional 49 million people into acute food insecurity across 45 countries by the end of 2027. Together with extreme heat and drought in major producing countries, these shocks pushed the FAO Food Price Index to an almost four-year high in September, when 16 countries recorded food inflation above 15 percent, up from ten in January. Some 266 million people faced acute hunger worldwide last year.
The agency also pointed to what it called a triple chokepoint for shipping: tensions in the straits of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab and the escalation in the Black Sea. It says this is hitting food production and trade at once, raising the cost of fuel, fertiliser, transport and food, and that WFP cargo bound for Yemen, Sudan and the Horn of Africa has been affected.
This year's World Food Day theme is "Innovate today. Nourish tomorrow". WFP says innovation is helping it reach people faster and at lower cost, from forecasts that trigger assistance before a drought or flood strikes, to digital tools that get help to families within days, to amphibious vehicles that reach communities where roads end. Its innovations reached 132.5 million people in 75 countries and territories last year.
"The challenges behind the rise in global hunger are mostly man-made: increasing conflict, a triple chokepoint on food and agricultural trade, and more frequent extreme weather. But the solutions are in our hands," said WFP Acting Executive Director Carl Skau.
WFP says the tools to get ahead of hunger already exist, and that with funding and access to use them at scale it can protect people from shocks that would otherwise set communities back for years.
Photo: Oxfam East Africa / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Source: WFP
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