The Iran war has done more than send oil prices spiking and shut down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz—it could reshape how many people go hungry through the rest of the decade to nearly 19 million more across Asia and Africa combined, according to a UN report released Tuesday.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 report, published jointly by five UN agencies, modeled what happens to global hunger through 2030 under competing assumptions about how long the fallout from this year’s conflict in the Middle East lasts. In the most pessimistic scenario, in which strikes on oil and gas infrastructure in the Persian Gulf take years to repair, the report projects 522 million people will be undernourished in 2030 compared to the 503 million in a pre-conflict baseline.
