Hunger Hotspots in a Post-USAID World

Bread for the World launched its Hunger Hotspots project in 2022, when a global hunger crisis continued unabated even as the COVID-19 pandemic began to wane. The project promotes awareness of the Hunger Hotspots updates produced by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Bread is holding a series of Hunger Hotspots briefings that feature the voices of people working in hunger emergencies, explaining what the global community, including U.S. advocates, can do to help. Bread’s Hunger Hotspots project also includes articles on ways to help resolve hunger crises, ranging from protecting very young children, who suffer most from the impacts of malnutrition, to stopping the use of starvation as a weapon of war.

The most recent WFP/FAO Hunger Hotspots update warns that food crises are expected to worsen in 13 countries and territories between June and October 2025. 

This is certainly discouraging. It is not unexpected, however, considering the drastic cuts to foreign assistance, including emergency humanitarian assistance, that the United States and several other donor governments have made.

As of September 2, 2025, no U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) staff remain at the agency. USAID has been dismantled. A small number of the agency’s responsibilities have been absorbed into the State Department, but there are no concrete plans for ongoing implementation of programs.

In Hunger Hotspots, people trapped in challenging circumstances are nonetheless using their ingenuity and all available resources to provide food and shelter for their children and themselves. Countless brave humanitarian workers are serving people directly, and Bread for the World members and others are advocating, and will continue to advocate, for this life-saving assistance.

The purpose of the WFP/FAO updates is to provide decision-makers, advocates, and aid workers with timely information about current food security developments. The new update identifies 13 countries/territories as Hunger Hotspots. The countries/territories “of highest concern” for the covered period are the Sudan, South Sudan, Palestine, Haiti, and Mali. These are the same five that have been of highest concern since May 2024. These countries and territories require the most urgent attention since their situations can be described as famine or catastrophic (IPC/CH Phase 5). In fact, famine has been declared in both the Sudan and the Gaza Strip.

This means that, after doing everything in their power and receiving all available assistance, households still have an extreme lack of food. The update, like previous Hunger Hotspots updates, does not mince words, reporting that “Starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident.” It is no surprise, then, that humanitarian officials are repeatedly calling for urgent action to prevent “widespread death and total collapse of livelihoods.”

Without swift action to ensure that humanitarian assistance can reach people in these areas, coupled with efforts to secure immediate de-escalation of conflict, the report continues, “further starvation and loss of life are [still] likely in the Sudan, Palestine, South Sudan, Haiti, and Mali.”

A second group of Hunger Hotspots countries is considered “of very high concern,” meaning that large numbers of people—half a million or more—are facing or are projected to face critical levels of acute food insecurity (IPC/CH Phase 4). Conditions in Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Myanmar, and Nigeria have been deteriorating due to an escalation of the factors that produced the already life-threatening conditions. Additional countries of concern include Burkina Faso, Chad, Somalia, and Syria.

In better news, the same WFP/FAO report revealed that 10 countries across the Middle East, East Africa, and Southern Africa are no longer classified as Hunger Hotspots due to improvements in climate or reductions in armed conflicts. These countries are Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Niger, and Lebanon.

However, the experts in humanitarian emergencies who compiled the WFP/FAO report emphasize that all Hunger Hotspots need immediate and expanded assistance to improve access to food and protect people’s ability to earn a living. Decision-makers should not wait any longer and let conditions deteriorate further. Earlier action—increasing funding for humanitarian assistance and intensifying diplomatic efforts to end conflict and allow humanitarian access—would have saved lives, reduced food gaps, and protected assets and livelihoods at a significantly lower cost than delayed action. 

For example, during the June through October 2025 period that this assessment covers, there were reports of hundreds of cases of expired U.S. food aid—about 15,000 pounds’ worth —that were sitting in a warehouse in Georgia due to disruptions in U.S. foreign aid. The current WFP/FAO assessment of Hunger Hotspots demonstrates in very clear terms that action must be taken to save lives. Congress and the administration should work together to urgently restart foreign assistance programs that support longer-term development, resilience, and food security.

Jordan Teague Jacobs is a senior international policy advisor with Bread for the World’s Policy and Research Institute (PRI).