Over 191m Nigerians couldn’t afford healthy diet in 2025: UN Report
A new United Nations (UN) report says about 191.2 million Nigerians could not afford a healthy diet in 2025 as rising food costs continued to put adequate nutrition beyond majority of the people.
The report indicated that the number of Nigerians unable to afford a healthy diet rose sharply from 137.5 million in 2017 to 191.2 million in 2025.
The 2026 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report found out that the minimum daily cost of a healthy diet in Nigeria increased from $2.78 to $4.17 in purchasing power parity per person, over the eight-year period.
The report assessed the affordability of a healthy diet based on the minimum daily cost of purchasing locally available foods that meet nutritional requirements.
It defined a healthy diet as one that is diverse, balanced and nutritionally adequate, comprising foods from six major groups: starchy staples, animal-source foods, legumes, nuts and seeds, vegetables, fruits, and oils and fats.
The UN report also showed that 66.6 percent of Africa’s population could not afford a healthy diet in 2025, 28.9 percent in Asia and 25.7 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean.
It noted that while affordability has improved in other regions, it continues to deteriorate across Africa.
The report said Africa has now overtaken Asia as the region with the highest number of people facing hunger.
It estimated that 309 million Africans experienced hunger in 2025, representing 20 percent of the continent’s population, compared with 292 million people in Asia and 32 million in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“The share of the global number of people estimated to be facing hunger who live in Africa has grown since 2010, surpassing Asia in 2025,” the report said.
Globally, between 608 million and 696 million people were estimated to have faced hunger in 2025. Using the midpoint estimate, about 645 million people experienced hunger, representing a decline of 14 million from 2024 and 43 million from 2022.
The report attributed the gradual global improvement to recovery from the economic and social disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic but warned that new conflicts, climate-related shocks and declining humanitarian assistance could reverse recent gains.
It projected that although the number of undernourished people worldwide could decline by 20 percent by 2030, between 510 million and 520 million people would still face hunger, with Africa expected to account for 56 percent of the global total.
The report also noted that 2025 marked Africa’s first improvement in food insecurity levels since 2015, as the proportion of people experiencing hunger declined slightly from 20.3 percent in 2024 to 20 percent. However, it said rapid population growth meant the absolute number of hungry people on the continent continued to increase.
The report added that 2.1 billion people, representing 25.8 percent of the world’s population, experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025, down from 27.1 percent in 2024 and 28.7 percent in 2020.
Rural communities and women, it noted, remained disproportionately affected.
The report was jointly produced by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), which warned that worsening conflicts, extreme weather events and shrinking humanitarian funding continue to threaten global food security, particularly in vulnerable regions.
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