“Three consecutive years of progress in reducing global hunger demonstrate that hunger is not inevitable”, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, said on Tuesday at the launch of the 2026 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report. According to the SOFI report, an estimated 645 million people (7.8 percent of the global population) faced hunger in 2025. This represents nearly 14 million fewer people than in 2024 and 43 million fewer than at the 2022 peak. Food insecurity also improved substantially. In 2025, approximately 2.1 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity, nearly 86 million fewer people than one year earlier. The largest gains were recorded in South America and Asia, especially in Southern Asia. Speaking at the launch event at FAO's headquarters in Rome, Qu said the report's findings demonstrate that determined policy action can deliver results. “These numbers are important because they show that hunger is not inevitable”, the Director-General said. “With strong economic policies, social protection and sustained investments in more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable agrifood systems, we can bend the hunger curve”. The launch event also saw contributions from the heads of three of the four UN agencies that helped FAO compile the report - Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD); Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO); and Carl Skau, Acting Executive Director of the of the World Food Programme (WFP). During a panel discussion, several government ministers shared their countries' experiences in fighting hunger and malnutrition, including José Ignacio Paliza, Minister of the Presidency of the Dominican Republic; Cheikhou Oumar Ba, Minister for Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Livestock of Senegal; and Abdurakhmonov Ibrokhim Yulchievich, Minister for Agriculture of Uzbekistan. Fernanda Machiaveli Morão De Oliveira, Minister for Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture of Brazil, provided closing remarks. Despite the positive trends highlighted in this year's edition of SOFI, the report warns that progress remains uneven and vulnerable to multiple shocks.