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Aid agencies call for urgent action to prevent hunger crisis in famine hotspots
People in four “famine hotspots” in Burkina Faso, northeastern Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen need help urgently to avoid sliding into famine, UN humanitarians said on Friday.
Blaming long-running conflict and a lack of humanitarian access to communities in need, climate extremes and the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned that 16 additional countries also face a “major (food) emergency – or series of emergencies” in the next three to six months.
At-risk nations include Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo – where 22 million people are acutely food insecure - the highest number ever registered for a single country - Haiti and Venezuela.
“Twenty countries have been identified and are referred to as hotspots that we are particularly concerned about,” said Claudia Ah Poe, senior food security adviser at WFP. “These countries already had significant acute food insecurity levels in 2020…and are now facing a risk of a further rapid deterioration over the next months.”
Among the 20 hotspots, Ah Poe added that “there are four where we are concerned that they may be facing an elevated risk of famine if the situation would further deteriorate over the coming months and these are Burkina Faso - in the Sahel Region - north-eastern Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen”.
Some communities in these four countries “are already experiencing a critical hunger situation”, the UN agencies said in a joint statement, that underscored the risk of famine if there is “any further deterioration” in coming weeks and months.
Underscoring the level of need in the three African countries found to be among the four nations most at risk of famine, WFP spokesperson Tomson Phiri explained that in “Burkina Faso, we know that there’s an insurgency in the northern part of the country, the same with north-eastern Nigeria, the same with South Sudan; it’s a conflict that is, for decades, people have lost assets, people have lost their capability to cope with any shocks. We had …unprecedented floods this year; I mean, floodwaters were submerging whole towns, people are struggling, the harvest that was just about to come in, in South Sudan.”
Further data from March to September has also shown that while in many countries COVID-19-related restrictions were progressively lifted, allowing economic activity to resume, 27 countries affected by food crises last year now
have up to 104.6 million people facing a food crisis.
In 2019, the number of people facing similar levels of food insecurity in these 27 countries was 97.6 million, according to WFP.
“In those 27 countries, the number of people that are already facing acute food insecurity are (sic) more than 100 million already. Analysis obviously is continuously ongoing so we except this number to increase much more,” said WFP’s Claudia Ah Poe. “And earlier on this year, we… had estimated in the countries where we are operating – which is around 80 countries – an additional 121 million people would be at risk of falling into food insecurity.”
Speaking via video link from Rome, FAO senior food crises analyst Luca Russo recalled that the main objective of the alert was to avert a humanitarian catastrophe by identifying the many factors that contribute to famine, and which specific actions would help vulnerable communities most.
In 2011, famine was declared in southern Somalia in July, but most people had already died by May, he said.
“The moment you declare a famine it is already too late to act, in the sense that we saw this in the past, with Somalia when the famine was declared, already 260,000 people had died…so we want to raise an early warning before the famine occurs.”
Echoing that message, FAO’s Director of Emergencies and Resilience, Dominique Burgeon called for urgent action from the international community.
“We are deeply concerned about the combined impact of several crises which are eroding people’s ability to produce and access food, leaving them more and more at risk of the most extreme hunger,” he said. “We need access to these populations to ensure they have food and the means to produce food and improve their livelihoods to prevent a worst-case scenario.”
In a statement, WFP Director of Emergencies Margot van der Velden, cautioned that the world is at a “catastrophic turning point”, with the risk of famine in four different parts of the world at the same time. “When we declare a famine, it means many lives have already been lost. If we wait to find that out for sure, people are already dead,” she said.
Famine is defined as the most severe type of hunger, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) measure, which humanitarians use to gauge food security levels on a scale of one to five.
A declaration of famine – IPC 5 - only refers to areas where “at least one in five households has or is most likely to have an extreme deprivation of food”, as per the IPC definition, and where “significant mortality, directly attributable to outright starvation or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease, is occurring or will be occurring”.
- Exterior wide shot, Palais des Nations flag alley, nations’ flags flying, a cloudy day.
- Medium-wide shot, TV camera operator with podium and speakers to rear in a near-empty Room XIV in line with COVID-19 distancing measures, Palais des Nations.
- SOUNDBITE (English) — Claudia Ah Poe, Senior food security adviser, World Food Programme (WFP): “Twenty countries have been identified and are referred to as hotspots that we are particularly concerned about. These countries already had significant acute food insecurity levels in 2020 – in early 2020 – and are now facing a risk of a further rapid deterioration over the next months.”
- Medium shot, UN technical staff member sitting with laptop and monitoring online participants, wears headphones, Room XIV, Palais des Nations.
- SOUNDBITE (English) — Claudia Ah Poe, senior food security adviser, World Food Programme (WFP): “Among the 20 hotspots that I just mentioned, there are four where we are concerned that they may be facing an elevated risk of famine if the situation would further deteriorate over the coming months and these are Burkina Faso - in the Sahel Region - north-eastern Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.”
- Medium shot, camera operator filming, Room XIV, Palais des Nations.
- SOUNDBITE (English) — Tomson Phiri, spokesperson, WFP (World Food Programme): “Burkina Faso, we know that there’s an insurgency in the northern part of the country, the same with north-eastern Nigeria, the same with South Sudan, it’s a conflict that is, for decades, people have lost assets, people have lost their capability to cope with any shocks. We had one of the unprecedented floods this year; I mean, flood water were submerging whole towns, people are struggling, the harvest that was just about to come in, in South Sudan.”
- Medium shot, UN staff member following the briefing on his laptop, Room XIV, Palais des Nations.
- SOUNDBITE (English) — Claudia Ah Poe, senior food security adviser, World Food Programme (WFP): “And in those 27 countries, the number of people that are already facing acute food insecurity are more than 100 million already. Analysis obviously is continuously ongoing so we except this number to increase much more. And earlier on this year, we, WFP, we actually had estimated in the countries where we are operating – which is around 80 countries – an additional 121 million people would be at risk of falling into food insecurity.”
- Medium-wide shot, podium with speakers, side shot, Room XIV, Palais des Nations.
- Medium shot, UN OCHA spokesperson sitting and using listening device, Room XIV, Palais des Nations.
- Medium shot, UN staff member sitting and checking his phone, Room XIV, Palais des Nations.
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As world’s water reserves change, countries must prepare for a new reality: WMO
New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
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Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
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“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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