As famine data dries up, can AI step in?
17/4/2025: Researchers are developing AI tools to predict famine more accurately and affordably. The dismantling of USAID has already shuttered FEWS NET, the gold standard for forecasting food crises.
Source: Devex
UN food agency caught in Trump administration’s crosshairs
11/4/2025: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has been ordered by the Trump administration to halt initiatives that do not align with an “America First” foreign policy. The US cannot accept any focus on climate in FAO’s work and no longer affirms the UN Sustainable Development Goals or any agenda for achieving them by 2030.
Source: Devex
Highest recorded incidence of acute food insecurity in DRC
27/3/2025: UN food agencies report that an alarming 28 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are now facing acute hunger, including 3.9 million experiencing emergency levels of hunger. Conflict, economic instability and surging food prices are contributory factors.
Source: World Food Programme
Trump’s aid freeze shuts down global famine-monitoring system
31/1/2025: The famine early warning systems network (Fews Net) for monitoring global food crises appears to have been suspended after President Donald Trump’s executive order froze US foreign aid. Fews Net helps humanitarian organisations decide how to distribute food aid to tens of millions of people around the world.
Source: The Guardian
Myanmar on the brink as conflict fuels hunger
29/1/2025: Hunger has reached alarming levels in Myanmar with the situation set to worsen in 2025, the World Food Programme has warned. A staggering 15 million people are expected to face hunger in 2025. More than 3.5 million people are displaced due to armed conflict and violence.
Source: World Food Programme
How Trump’s US aid stop-work order affects global food aid
29/1/2025: The Trump administration’s 90-day freeze of nearly all foreign assistance has paralyzed a vast swath of US-funded food aid and agricultural research work.W hile “emergency food aid” is exempt from the order, it remains unclear what counts under that umbrella.
Source: Devex
African countries adopt new 10-year agriculture strategy
15/1/2025: The Kampala Declaration, a 10-year strategy adopted by the African Union, commits to increasing the continent’s agricultural output by 45% and tripling intra-African trade in agrifood products by 2035.
Source: Devex
Laureates call for moonshot innovation to avert hunger catastrophe
14/1/2025: More than 150 Nobel and World Food Prize Laureates are calling for urgent agricultural research to meet the food needs of nearly 10 billion people by mid-century. They say that neglected indigenous crops, rich in nutrition and resilient to climate change, are key to research focused on tackling global hunger.
Source: Inter Press Service
World Food Programme reports worsening global food security
22/11/2024: According to the Global Outlook 2025 published by the World Food Programme, hunger continues to rise, with 343 million people across 74 countries experiencing acute food insecurity – a 10 per cent increase from last year. Funding shortfalls in 2024 forced the agency to scale back activities, often leaving some of the most vulnerable behind.
Source: UN News
A quarter of DRC population continue to face hunger
21/11/2024: There are 25.6 million people who continue to face crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to latest reports. The World Food Programme faces a critical funding gap of US$350 million over the next six months to provide essential food and nutrition assistance to the most vulnerable people.
Source: World Food Programme