These Are The World's 10 Hungriest Countries

By Sushmita Roy

Far too many people — about 1 in 7 — go hungry around the world everyday. While poverty is directly linked to global hunger, other prevalent issues that cause low-income families to go hungry include forced displacement due to internal and external conflicts, wars and climate change.

The Global Hunger Index 2019 measures global hunger levels around the world annually. Although hunger levels have gone down significantly in three decades, reflecting a 31% decline in global hunger since 2000, multiple countries had higher hunger levels in 2019 than they did in 2010.

Aftermath of Cyclone Idai in Mozambique. PC: EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid/ Flickr

“It is a terrible global indictment that after decades of sustained progress in reducing global hunger, climate change and conflict are now undermining food security in the world’s most vulnerable regions,” Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, wrote in the annual report.

Climate change results in massive crop failures pushing most people in the primary sector at the brink of poverty. It’s also responsible for intensifying and increasing the frequency of natural disasters and extreme weather events that disproportionately affect lower-income communities in developing regions around the world. While countries with the highest hunger levels are mostly in the African continent, Asian countries like India, Indonesia and the Philippines are also facing serious levels of hunger despite hopes of economic growth.

Around 800 million people around the world suffer from food insecurity — not able to access sufficient quantity of affordable and nutritious food. These are the 10 countries facing the biggest hunger crisis yet:

10. Afghanistan

In 2018, two of the three provinces in Afghanistan faced the worst drought in decades, pushing approximately 2.2 million people, already dealing with chronic food insecurity, to require emergency assistance, according to U.N. estimates. While the drought’s impacts are likely to fade in 2019, ongoing conflicts in the highly troubled zone, combined with climate and livelihood crises puts nearly 5 million people or roughly 14% of the population towards food insecurity. In 2019, 3.6 million are at Emergency levels of food insecurity, which is a 24% increase compared to 2018 figures, according to the GHI scores.

9. Zimbabwe

After Cyclone Idai and several droughts crushed the country earlier this year, more and more people sank into poverty and were unable to afford food. While the drought led to crop failures, the cyclone washed away whatever little was left. To make matters worse, the country is currently amidst a major drought crisis, which contributed to a cereal deficit of over 900,000 metric tons and has left 3.6 million people food-insecure. About 59% of rural Zimbabweans, or about 5.5 million people, are now food insecure, a report by the government, the United Nations and aid groups said in July.

Timor Leste heavily relies on agriculture that has been majorly impacted by severe droughts. PC: United Nations Photo/ Flickr

8. Timor-Leste

This small island nation is one of Asia’s poorest counties. About one-third of Timor-Leste’s population suffers from chronic food insecurity. The country also has one of the highest rates of malnutrition in the world with 46% of children under five suffering from chronic malnutrition.

7. Haiti

The Caribbean country has the highest level of hunger in the Western Hemisphere and is still recovering from the earthquake in 2010 that killed almost 300,000 people. It was estimated that over one million people were left homeless after the catastrophic event. But even before the quake, 1.9 million people were food insecure and needed assistance to stave off hunger. Till date, only half of Haiti's population has access to safe drinking water and 55% or 9 million people live below the poverty line earning only $1 (USD) a day.

Haitians in line for food. PC: NWHCM/ Flickr

6. Liberia

Liberia is the newest addition to the list following two years of ongoing rains that have caused irreversible damage to the agriculture industry. About 1.8 million Liberians are undernourished, and 2.9 million are food-insecure and 35.5% of Liberia’s children suffer the effects of stunting. The effect of the Liberian Civil War that ended only 12 years ago still has damaging effects on the economy. The Ebola outbreak from 2013-2016 also killed 11,300 people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

5. Zambia

Zambia has not dealt with any civil conflicts for over many years now, but climate change poses a big threat to the nation, where most citizens rely on agriculture for their livelihood. Rainfall, therefore, is as important to the people as is air. In 2019, however, many areas in southern and western Zambia saw the lowest rainfalls since at least 1981, the official year since the country started recording rainfall. UN estimates that the current number of acutely food-insecure Zambians (1.7 million) will rise to 2.3 million by March 2020.

4. Madagascar

Each year, Madagascar is adversely affected by an average of 1.5 cyclones, the highest number in Africa. In 2019, the country was hit by Cyclone Idai in March that destroyed more than $773 million in buildings, infrastructure, and crops, and Cyclone Kenneth in April with similar disastrous effects. The periods of extreme flooding displaced millions of people and created unsanitary conditions that promoted tropical diseases. Currently, the UN estimates that 21% of the country’s population faces food insecurity.

3. Chad

Internal conflicts between Boko Haram, a militant Islamic group working out of Nigeria, and the Nigerian security forces, have had such disastrous effects that the three neighbors of Nigeria: Niger, Chad and Cameroon, are also facing consequences. Combined with climate disasters such as prolonged droughts, Chad also sees an influx of refugees from its neighbors, all in need of food and emergency assistance. Around 3.7 million Chadians are food-insecure, a 29% increase since 2018. The number of children suffering from acute malnutrition also witnessed a drastic increase from 220,000 in 2018 to surpassing 350,000 in 2019.

Refugees from neighboring countries, all in need of assistance, have settled in Chad. Photo Credit: Eu Humanitarian Aid in Chad/ Flickr

2. Yemen

The country is home to what is often called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. The crisis in Yemen began around 2011 when an Arab Spring uprising led authoritarian President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had led Yemen for more than three decades, to surrender and transfer his powers to his deputy, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who was unable to restore the economy. Since then many groups including islamic militant groups, Al-Qaeda and IS, have sought to take control of regions in the country, and civilians have suffered endlessly.

The U.N. has described the hunger crisis in Yemen as the biggest in the world with 20 million people across the country facing hunger and 7.4 million Yemenis requiring malnutrition treatment, including 2 million children facing acute malnutrition.

1. Central African Republic

The Central African Republic is in a state of war since a violent takeover of power in 2013. Several armed militia groups have tried to seize control of the land and in the process slaughtered many civilians. According to UNICEF, two in three children in the Central African Republic (CAR) are in urgent need of aid.

Food production has been stalled or crops destroyed leaving 63% of the total population in need of humanitarian assistance. This includes 2.1 million people or 46% of the total population suffering from food insecurity, a 10% increase from last year.

The report was put together by humanitarian organizations: Concern Worldwide US and Welthungerhilfe. The researchers also noted that insufficient data was available for many countries that suffer from hunger including Burundi, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Libya, Papua New Guinea, Somalia, South Sudan and Syria.