Global Hunger Index 2025: Countries with the Most Alarming Hunger Crisis
Somalia has the highest Global Hunger Index score of any country scored for 2025, on 42.6, with DR Congo next on 37.5.
Thirteen countries scored across four editions — 2000, 2008, 2016 and 2025 — and five the report could not score at all. DR Congo and South Sudan share 121st place on 37.5.
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These figures are from the 2025 edition, as they stood when this chart was published on . The chart is a snapshot and is never refreshed, so a newer edition may exist. What this site keeps current on the subject.
A table of the thirteen countries with the most alarming hunger in the 2025 Global Hunger Index. Each row gives the country’s world rank and its score in 2000, 2008, 2016 and 2025, with every cell shaded by severity. Somalia is worst at 42.6, down from 64.3 in 2000; DR Congo and South Sudan share 121st on 37.5. Burundi, Yemen, North Korea, Sudan and Lesotho carry a severity band instead of a score, because the report could not calculate one for them.
What goes into the score
- Undernourishment
- Child stunting
- Child wasting
- Child mortality
From the publisher’s own method. On the poster this list is printed in a box over the data it explains; here it sits beside it.
01The figures
Global Hunger Index score, 2025
Every row the chart prints, as text rather than pixels — 13 of them, exactly as Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide published them. Country names link to their profiles.
- Two countries share 121st place. They are listed together below, in the publisher’s own order.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column
- Extremely alarming
- GHI 50.0 and above
- Alarming
- GHI 35.0–49.9
- Serious
- GHI 20.0–34.9
- Moderate
- GHI 10.0–19.9
- Low
- GHI 9.9 and below
For the countries without a rank, individual scores could not be calculated and ranks could not be determined owing to lack of data; the publisher gives a severity band instead.
02Analysis
What the chart says
According to the Global Hunger Index 2025 report, hunger is decreasing globally; its score is 18.3, down from 19.0 in 2016. But the world is still divided between the rich and the poor, the oppressed and the oppressor.
In such an advanced era, with vast resources, ordinary people are still facing an alarming hunger crisis. Why? It’s not because of a lack of resources, but because of the injustice in distribution.
Global Hunger Index 2025 (GHI) scores are based on four key indicators: Undernourishment, Child wasting, Child stunting, and Child mortality.
The Role of Elite Rulers in Creating Artificial Food Shortages
Hunger is a state of discomfort and weakness caused by a shortage of food. Generally, there can be only two causes of hunger: natural and forced.
A natural hunger is one in which disasters cause a severe food shortage. But in forced hunger, natural factors do not play a role, nor is there a shortage of food; resources are more than enough, but this hunger is imposed through a cruel system and inhumane economic policies by elite rulers.
These ruling elite rulers create artificial shortages and control resources to further their interests by imposing hunger on humanity.
They focus only on excessive profit-making, which harms ordinary people. And there is no justice system to deal with this exploitative capitalist system, causing widespread hunger in society.
They throw people before the hardships of unemployment and an unsafe environment. That’s where the ordinary people of the country struggle to meet the basic need for food.
Economic Oppression and Hunger: The Legacy of Colonialism in Africa and Asia
Most of the countries that were slaves of European nations during the era of European colonialism (late 15th century to the mid-20th century) were robbed and are still under the indirect control of the same oppressor nations.
The rulers are still running their countries according to their policies. And they are plundering the resources and selling to their multinational companies at low prices. Elite rulers are wealthy themselves, but the people are in great hunger crisis, because they have now established an exploitative system on their own or with the influence of European colonial nations.
Today, while many African and Asian countries are politically ruled by their own nationals, they remain enslaved by the economic oppression and political influence of European countries and the United States of America (the new global power after World War II).
03Sources
Where these figures come from
Source
Global Hunger Index 2025 — Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide
Index producer
The figures are from the 2025 edition, read on . This page reproduces only the 13 rows the chart itself shows, not the publisher’s full table.
How this site reads a chart — what is stored as published, whose rank is whose, when a country is named at an end, and why a chart is never refreshed.
Cite this page
“Global Hunger Index 2025: Countries with the Most Alarming Hunger Crisis”, Nations Inquiry, 2025. https://nationsinquiry.com/charts/global-hunger-index-2025-countries-with-the-most-alarming-hunger-crisis
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