Less is not more in the face of hunger

The UK government played a prominent role at launch of the annual Global Report on Food Crises in London recently. However, despite broad recognition that global food crises are intensifying, it has made no new funding commitments to tackle both the immediate humanitarian needs and the underlying drivers of this acute hunger. 

This reflects the ongoing implementation of drastic official development assistance (ODA) cuts. Sadly, this means escalating needs have to be met with fewer resources, and brutal decisions need to be made regarding which programmes continue to be funded. 

In the UK, financial cuts to lifesaving programmes have largely been framed as an ambition to “do better with less”. The aim is for better coordination, stronger integration, reinforced expertise and deeper collaboration with local communities — all with fewer resources.

As a result, less support has reached communities facing hunger in climate- and conflict-affected contexts. Fewer treatments are available for children suffering from acute undernutrition. These trends are unlikely to reverse as humanitarian needs continue to grow. 

In 2025, an estimated 35.5 million children were acutely malnourished, including 9.7 million suffering from severe acute malnutrition. This year’s Global Report on Food Crises, which reports on last year’s data, shows that conflict remains the main driver of acute food insecurity, alongside extreme weather events, economic shocks, instability and high food prices. The decline in humanitarian assistance in 2025 came against a backdrop of persistently high global food insecurity, driven in part by funding cuts from major ODA providers.

The report uses millions to measure the populations experiencing hunger. Yet every single child reaching a state of undernourishment represents a political and moral failure by global leaders.

What will next year’s edition of the report reveal?

In the face of ongoing political crises, rising conflict and increasing humanitarian needs, a seismic shift is required to tackle global hunger more effectively year after year.

Such a shift must include more efficient coordination across the humanitarian and development sectors and more integrated approaches to address the multiple underlying causes of hunger. We also need stronger alignment between systems and actors, and increased investment in resilient food systems for the long term.

Donors must reconsider the cuts they are making to their aid budgets, recognising the human impacts these are having and the millions of lives that are at stake. We also need pressing humanitarian actions now alongside , continued investment in long-term resilience building so that populations can cope as crises worsen. If we don’t, humanitarian costs will keep mounting and millions more lives will be lost.

Addressing the root causes of hunger – clearly conflict, as the lead driver, and climate change –requires investment, political commitment and diplomacy. This requires humanitarian principles to be upheld so that much needed assistance can be delivered safely and at-scale. We need to see words turn into action. 

Most importantly, all efforts and ways of working must be co-created with and led by local civil society.

In April, when the Global Report on Food Crises 2026 was published, we saw renewed political attention on the crises facing the world. In its 10th edition, the report begins to show what it means for the most impoverished communities to receive less support following drastic cuts to ODA in 2025. 

At its best, UK leadership has shown that global solidarity and national interest are not competing priorities — they are deeply interconnected. Conflicts have repercussions on our collective economies, food systems, the cost of living and our shared values.

This World Hunger Day, we urge the UK government to recommit to global humanitarian  cooperation by restoring lifesaving assistance, prioritising food security and nutrition and placing local communities at the centre of decision making.