Africa-Press – Uganda. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has raised concern that the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2026 does not list hunger among the world’s top 10 global risks over either the two-year or 10-year horizon, despite growing threats to global food systems—particularly in Africa.
AGRA notes that this omission comes at a time when climate shocks are intensifying, ecosystems are under mounting strain, global supply chains remain fragile, and the foundations of food production are steadily eroding.
More than half of Africa’s population depends directly on nature for their livelihoods, underscoring the deep link between food security, ecosystem health, and economic stability.The Global Risks Report identifies geoeconomic and geopolitical tensions as the most pressing short-term risks, alongside trade wars, misinformation and disinformation, societal polarisation, extreme weather events, and state-based armed conflict.
Over the long term, it highlights environmental threats such as biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, extreme weather, adverse outcomes of artificial intelligence, and natural resource shortages. Hunger appears in neither list.
While acknowledging the seriousness of the risks outlined in the report, AGRA argues that hunger should not be treated as a niche humanitarian issue.
“Hunger is a compounding and destabilising risk multiplier,” AGRA said, noting that it fuels displacement, undermines political stability, deepens inequality, and weakens human capital and productivity. “You cannot have strong economies without healthy ecosystems, and you cannot have healthy people without access to safe, affordable, and nutritious food.”“When hunger is treated as a downstream outcome rather than a front-line risk, the world responds too late—after livelihoods collapse, after conflicts intensify, after children’s nutrition and learning are permanently damaged, and after fragile economies lose years of progress,” said Alice Ruhweza, President of AGRA. “Food and nutrition security must be integral to the global risk management architecture.”
A Hunger Crisis Already Underway
AGRA says the hunger crisis is already unfolding, particularly in Africa. According to the latest UN food security assessments, an estimated 673 million people faced hunger globally in 2024. In Africa, hunger prevalence exceeded 20 percent, affecting more than 307 million people.
The trend threatens progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG 2 on Zero Hunger, at a time when Africa’s population is projected to reach 2.5 billion by 2050.
Scientific evidence further shows that climate change is already reducing food security, affecting crop yields, livestock, fisheries, food access, and prices—impacts that are most severe for small-scale producers in Africa. AGRA warns that without transforming agriculture, climate resilience will remain out of reach.
Climate, Nature and Hunger Are One Crisis
AGRA aligns with the growing global call to place climate and nature at the centre of policy action, backed by measurable implementation rather than pledges alone. For food systems, this means confronting the reality that degraded soils, water stress, biodiversity loss, and rising temperatures are directly undermining harvests, incomes, diets, and stability.
Land and soil degradation, AGRA notes, are steadily weakening productive capacity and resilience, amplifying the impacts of droughts, floods, and heatwaves.
Meeting Africa’s future food needs will require climate- and nature-positive agricultural innovations that boost productivity while reducing pressure on land, limiting ecosystem conversion, and accelerating adaptation to climate change.
“Hunger doesn’t wait for the world to finish debating risk rankings,” Ruhweza said. “It grows quietly through depleted soils, failed rains, unaffordable diets, and stunted children. Davos should be a turning point where global risk leadership reflects the reality facing farmers and families.”
AGRA’s Call Ahead of Davos 2026
As global leaders prepare to gather in Davos, AGRA is calling for hunger and malnutrition to be explicitly recognised as strategic global risks, with investment and policy action to match.
The organisation urges governments, development banks, philanthropic partners, insurers, and agrifood businesses to act with urgency, noting that the roadmap is clear:
The African Development Bank projects Africa’s food and agriculture market will reach USD 1 trillion by 2030, presenting a major economic, social, and environmental investment opportunity.
Hunger should be reclassified as a first-order global risk, tracked alongside conflict, cyber insecurity, and macroeconomic shocks.
Climate adaptation must be scaled to reach smallholder farmers, including stress-tolerant seeds, climate services, insurance, and localised extension systems.
Soil health and landscape restoration should form the backbone of food security strategies.
Investment is needed in resilience-building infrastructure, including water management, irrigation where viable, storage, rural roads, energy access, and efficient market systems, to prevent climate shocks from becoming food crises.
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