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By Dalia Al-Awqati and Diana Sarosi
The world is producing enough food to feed everyone. Yet today, hunger is rising at an alarming pace. According to the 2026 Global Report on Food Crises, 318 million people are experiencing crisis levels of hunger or worse—more than double the number recorded in 2019. Behind these staggering figures lies a sobering reality: today’s hunger crisis is not simply the result of failed harvests or natural disasters. It is increasingly the consequence of conflict, climate change, economic inequality and displacement interacting in ways that trap millions of people in prolonged food insecurity.
Hunger is not inevitable. It is the outcome of political choices and structural inequalities that deny people access to food, livelihoods and safety. While humanitarian organizations continue to save lives through emergency assistance, ending hunger requires tackling the systems that create and sustain it. The global food crisis is no longer driven by isolated shocks, but by interconnected crises that demand equally integrated solutions.
The Global Report on Food Crises defines a food crisis as a situation where acute food insecurity requires urgent action to save lives and livelihoods while exceeding a country’s capacity to respond. Today, roughly 70 percent of the world’s acutely food-insecure people live in conflict-affected countries.
This represents a profound shift in the nature of global hunger. Previous food crises were often triggered by droughts, crop failures or sudden price spikes. While these factors remain important, today’s crises are increasingly prolonged because multiple drivers reinforce one another. Climate shocks make communities more vulnerable. Conflict destroys food production. Displacement cuts families off from their livelihoods. Economic instability pushes already struggling households beyond their limits.
The result is that hunger has become less about whether food exists, and more about whether people can safely access, afford and produce it.
Climate change is making food production increasingly unpredictable. More frequent droughts, floods, heatwaves and changing rainfall patterns are reducing agricultural yields and threatening the livelihoods of millions of small-scale farmers who already live on the margins.
Across southern Africa, recurring El Niño events—caused by unusual warming of surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean—have devastated harvests. In Malawi, for example, research from the International Food Policy Research Institute projects that El Niño significantly reduces agricultural production, disrupts food markets and weakens the national economy. Historical modelling found that two out of every three El Niño events since the 1980s resulted in average crop yield losses of more than 22 percent.
The situation is equally concerning across West Africa and the Sahel. Between October and December 2025, nearly 42 million people were facing crisis levels of food insecurity. The Food and Agriculture Organization warns that another El Niño phase is expected to bring shortened rainy seasons, delayed rainfall and prolonged dry spells that threaten agricultural production across the region.
Climate change alone, however, does not automatically lead to famine. Similar droughts can produce vastly different outcomes depending on a country’s ability to prepare, invest in agriculture, maintain social safety nets and protect vulnerable populations. Climate shocks become humanitarian disasters where poverty, weak institutions and conflict already exist.
Perhaps the most alarming feature of today’s food crisis is the growing role of armed conflict. Agricultural production has increasingly become part of the battlefield. Farms, irrigation systems, grain silos, livestock and food markets are deliberately destroyed or rendered inaccessible. Humanitarian workers are attacked, aid deliveries are blocked, and civilians are denied access to food as a tactic of war.
This represents a dangerous reversal after decades during which conflict-related famine had declined. Today, starvation is once again being used as a weapon of war.
Syria illustrates how devastating this can be. Before the civil war began in 2011, Syria produced enough wheat to meet domestic demand. During more than a decade of conflict, wheat-producing regions became strategic military targets. Grain silos, seed banks and agricultural infrastructure were destroyed. Of approximately 140 wheat collection centres operating before the conflict, only around 40 remained functional. Food prices soared while the availability and diversity of food declined dramatically.
The war in Ukraine has similarly disrupted one of the world’s largest agricultural exporters. Grain exports remain substantially below prewar levels as farmland has been contaminated, labour shortages have intensified, and critical infrastructure has been damaged. Because Ukraine plays such an important role in global grain markets, these disruptions have driven food price increases far beyond the country’s borders, particularly affecting food-importing nations.
More recently, escalating conflict across Southwest Asia and North Africa has created new pressures on global food systems. Attacks on energy infrastructure and shipping routes have increased transportation costs and disrupted supply chains.
Threats to critical maritime corridors affect the movement of fertilizer, fuel and food commodities, placing additional pressure on countries that depend heavily on imports. Poor households—already spending much of their income on food—bear the greatest burden. The consequences extend far beyond individual conflicts. Hunger fuels instability, while instability creates more hunger. This vicious cycle becomes increasingly difficult to break as conflicts become more protracted.
Conflict and climate change frequently force people to flee their homes, separating them from farmland, employment, livestock and community support systems. Displacement transforms environmental and political shocks into personal food crises.
Sudan demonstrates this dynamic with devastating clarity. Since fighting erupted in April 2023, agricultural production has collapsed across large parts of the country. Food stocks have been looted, markets destroyed and farming disrupted. By 2025, Sudan had become the world’s largest internal displacement crisis, with approximately 12 million people forced from their homes.
Combined with recurring floods, droughts and economic collapse, these factors have contributed to famine conditions in parts of the country. The FAO attributes Sudan’s loss of food self-sufficiency to the interaction of conflict, displacement, climate shocks and economic instability—not to any single factor alone.
Displacement often creates long-term dependence on humanitarian assistance because families lose the assets, land and livelihoods they need to recover independently. Without durable political solutions, humanitarian needs continue to grow.
Economic pressures have become another major driver of hunger. Rising food prices, unemployment, inflation and declining incomes mean that even when food is available, millions simply cannot afford it.
At the household level, families cope by reducing meals, withdrawing children from school or selling productive assets that would otherwise help them recover. At the national level, governments facing debt crises often lack the resources to maintain social protection programs or respond effectively to emergencies.
At the same time, humanitarian financing is failing to keep pace with growing needs. Funding for food assistance declined dramatically in 2025, while development financing also fell significantly. The withdrawal of USAID severed life-saving pipelines, leaving millions at risk of famine. This widening gap forces humanitarian agencies to make impossible choices about whom they can help.
The result is an increasingly unequal global food system. Wealthier countries can absorb supply shocks through diversified markets and stronger public institutions. Fragile states, by contrast, experience the same shocks as humanitarian catastrophes.
This illustrates a fundamental truth: hunger is not simply about food production. It is also about inequality, access and political priorities.
The most severe food crises today are rarely accidents. They are often the result of deliberate actions that violate international humanitarian law.
International law prohibits the use of starvation as a method of warfare. Yet recent years have seen famine conditions emerge in places where parties to conflict have intentionally obstructed humanitarian assistance, restricted civilian access to food or destroyed the systems that sustain agricultural production.
The confirmation of famine in Gaza and parts of Sudan has underscored this disturbing trend. These crises cannot be explained solely by drought, crop failure or market disruption. Rather, they reflect situations where civilians have been systematically denied access to food and essential services.
This is why many humanitarian organizations increasingly describe hunger as a political failure rather than simply a humanitarian emergency. When starvation is used as a weapon, humanitarian aid alone cannot solve the problem. Diplomatic pressure, accountability and respect for international humanitarian law become essential components of any response.
This complex, multi-pronged problem can only be alleviated by diverse approaches. Oxfam responds to hunger through both humanitarian action and long-term advocacy aimed at addressing the root causes of food insecurity.
In humanitarian emergencies, it provides immediate assistance by distributing cash, food and clean water, supporting sanitation services, protecting livelihoods and helping communities restore agricultural production. Cash assistance enables families to purchase food locally while support local markets whenever possible. It also helps farmers recover by providing seeds, livestock support, irrigation systems and climate-resilient farming techniques that strengthen long-term food security.
At the community level, working with local organizations—particularly women’s organizations—can build resilience before crises occur. This includes improving water management, promoting sustainable agriculture, supporting women’s economic empowerment and strengthening local disaster preparedness systems.
But humanitarian assistance alone cannot end hunger.
At the same time, it is also necessary to advocate for stronger international action to prevent conflict, protect civilians and uphold international humanitarian law. It is crucial to allow unrestricted humanitarian access, protect aid workers and ensure accountability when starvation is used as a weapon of war. There must also be support for implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2417, which condemns the use of starvation against civilians during armed conflict.
Beyond emergency response, however, wealthy countries must make greater investments in climate adaptation, expanded early warning systems, fairer international trade policies and increased humanitarian funding. It is also necessary to address the growing inequalities that leave poorer countries disproportionately vulnerable to global economic shocks.
Underlying all of Oxfam’s work is the recognition that hunger is inseparable from poverty, inequality and injustice. Sustainable food security depends not only on producing more food, but also on ensuring people have the rights, resources and opportunities needed to access it.
The global hunger crisis is one of the defining humanitarian challenges of our time. Yet it is neither inevitable nor unsolvable.
The convergence of climate change, conflict, displacement and economic instability has created a far more complex food crisis than previous generations faced. Addressing it requires solutions that are equally interconnected.
Emergency assistance must be paired with long-term investments in resilient agriculture, stronger social protection systems, conflict prevention and climate adaptation. Governments must protect humanitarian access, keep food and fertilizer markets functioning, and enforce international laws that prohibit starvation as a weapon of war. Most importantly, the world must recognize that hunger is fundamentally a question of justice. In a world capable of producing enough food for everyone, no one should face starvation because of war, inequality or political neglect.
Responding to hunger means doing more than delivering food. It means challenging the systems that create hunger in the first place, supporting communities to build lasting resilience, and advocating for a world where everyone has the right not only to survive, but to thrive.
Dalia Al-Awqati is the Deputy Director of Humanitarian Affairs at Oxfam Canada and the Co-Chair of the Humanitarian Response Network of Canada.
Diana Sarosi is the Director of Policy, Campaigns, and Communications at Oxfam Canada. Learn about Oxfam Canada’s work at www.oxfam.ca.