Recent findings in the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, or SOFI, report show that global hunger fell in 2025 to 645 million people, representing a reduction of 43 million people compared to 2022.  These are reasons for optimism.

But hunger is only part of the story. Healthy diets remain financially out of reach for 2.7 billion people globally, and this is disproportionately the case in Africa, where almost two-thirds of the population cannot afford a healthy diet. Climate change, humanitarian crises, and shifting funding priorities are making it harder for vulnerable populations to access the diverse, nutritious diets they need.

For decades, food systems have been judged largely by their ability to produce sufficient food. But food production alone does not guarantee good nutrition. It does not even guarantee hunger reduction.

What matters ultimately is what ends up on people's plates: cereals and potatoes are important, but so too are vegetables, fruits, beans, eggs, dairy, poultry and fish, because they contain more nutrients per gram. Diets must be diverse to be healthy.  That means that nutritious foods have to be available, affordable, and desirable on a consistent basis. For the most vulnerable communities, these questions become even more urgent when food prices rise, livelihoods are disrupted, and climate shocks affect production and access.

This is particularly important when we talk about “hidden hunger”: deficiencies in essential micronutrients such as iron, zinc, and Vitamin A that may not always be visible, but can have profound consequences for health and well-being. A food system that provides access to calories without sufficient micronutrients is delivering empty calories, and that emptiness does not nurture health, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

In other words, we need to move beyond asking whether food systems produce enough food and start asking whether they produce enough nutritious food and make it affordable and desirable to the most vulnerable.

Read the full article about making food systems work for hidden hunger by Alice Ruhweza, Hamadi Boga, Cecilia Fabrizio, Penjani Mkambula, Saskia Osendarp, and Lawrence Haddad at Devex.