Subscribe
Two out of every three people in Africa cannot afford a healthy diet.
This is more than double the global average.
Africa’s nutrition crisis has also deepened.
With less than four years remaining to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 on Zero Hunger by 2030, and falling short of the Malabo Commitments set for 2025, a new report warned that Africa is moving further away from its food and nutrition targets.
The number of people unable to afford a healthy diet in Africa is rising and more than 1 billion people were affected in 2024, according to the report released May 1, 2026. This is an increase of over 29 million compared to 2023 and nearly 145 million than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Overall, about 66.6 per cent of Africa’s population could not afford a healthy diet in 2024. This is more than double the global average of 31.9 per cent.
This burden of unaffordability is uneven across the continent. Eastern Africa accounted for the largest share, with 365.5 million people affected, while Southern Africa had the lowest at 45.3 million, showed the report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the World Food Programme and the African Union Commission.
The report identified rising food costs as a key driver of the crisis. In 2024, the average cost of a healthy diet in Africa reached 4.41 purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars per person per day, an increase of 5.5 per cent from 2023. This is much higher than the extreme poverty threshold of 2.15 PPP dollars, per person per day. This means that that that not only the poor, even some people above the poverty line defined as non-poor, are unable to afford healthy diet.
At the country level too, the share of people unable to afford a healthy diet varied widely. In nine countries, more than 80 per cent of their population was unable to afford nutritious food, underscoring severe challenges for food security and nutrition. These included Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, South Sudan and Zambia.
Northern African countries reported the lowest levels of unaffordability. Tunisia and Morocco stood out, with 8.2 per cent and 13.6 per cent of their populations, respectively, unable to afford a healthy diet.
Some countries also showed progress, according to the report. Between 2019 and 2024, 14 countries, including Benin, Botswana, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Liberia, Namibia, Senegal, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, managed to reduce the share of people unable to afford a healthy diet.
But many countries have either deteriorated or stagnated. While Benin stood out with the biggest improvement, reducing the share by 9.9 percentage points, condition in at least seven other countries deteriorated. In Angola, Chad, Egypt, Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone and South Sudan, conditions worsened, with increases ranging from 5.7 percentage points in Sierra Leone to a steep 11.3 percentage points in Mali.
The steady increase in the cost of a healthy diet in Africa and in all the subregions meant compromising with nutrition, the experts warned in the report. By 2024, more than 306 million people in Africa were undernourished. This is an increase of about 10 million people over the 2023 estimates and of 73 million people since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The burden of hunger, as measured by the prevalence of undernourishment, has worsened significantly since 2010, reversing earlier gains made between 2000 and 2010. In 2024, 20.2 per cent of Africa’s population was undernourished, up by 4.3 percentage points since 2010. This contrasts sharply with global trends and highlights the disproportionate impact of food insecurity on the continent.
While Africa had reduced undernourishment to 15.9 per cent in 2015, levels have since climbed again, widening the gap with global averages and deepening the crisis in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. So, one in five Africans is undernourished, a share that has been steadily rising since 2010, reflecting a persistent and deepening food security crisis across the continent.
According to FAO, a healthy diet includes whole grains, legumes, nuts and a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, along with moderate amounts of eggs, dairy, poultry and fish, and small quantities of red meat.
By 2021, ultra-processed foods were on average 47 per cent cheaper than unprocessed or minimally processed foods and about 50 per cent cheaper than processed foods. However, the nutrient-rich foods remain costly and volatile, limiting dietary diversity for many households.
According to the FAO, this price gap is a key driver of unhealthy eating patterns. As cheaper ultra-processed foods become more accessible than healthier alternatives, food choices are increasingly shaped by cost rather than nutrition.
The result is a growing “double burden” of malnutrition. Adult obesity in Africa reached 16.2% in 2022, rising steadily over two decades and now slightly above the global average. At the same time, undernourishment remains widespread, showing the coexistence of hunger and diet-related health problems.
Together, these trends underline how food price disparities are not only restricting access to healthy diets but also reshaping nutrition outcomes in ways that are simultaneously driving both undernutrition and obesity.
With less than five years to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger), the continent is off track and has also missed the 2025 Malabo commitments, raising concerns over slow progress on food security and nutrition, the experts warned in the report.
“The worsening food security and slow progress towards global nutrition targets demand increased efforts to achieve a world without hunger and malnutrition by 2030. Given the projected lower economic growth, high inflation, and rising borrowing costs since 2022, greater action is necessary,” said Abebe Haile-Gabriel, Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Africa, FAO.
Against this backdrop, the report stressed on the urgent need for targeted interventions and sustained efforts to tackle the root causes of undernourishment. It called for increased financing and a sustainable transformation of agrifood systems across Africa to end hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition.