This factsheet takes an up-to-date look at food poverty globally, regionally and nationally, using data from 2000 to 2023. Based on national sources, Development Initiatives has calculated the rate of food poverty across 121 economies, with data available for over three-quarters of the world’s population.1 Since our last factsheet on food poverty, published in early 2020, there has been a reversal of progress in reducing food poverty globally. We show that the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine are projected to have had a considerable impact on this. To live in food poverty is to lack the means to obtain enough food to live a healthy life. People living in food poverty have an income or expenditure that is less than the amount needed to consistently afford a basket of food with the minimum recommended nutritional intake. The cost of this basket is called a food poverty line. People living below the food poverty line are not able to afford the cost of food necessary for good health. This leaves them in danger of malnutrition, disease or ill health. The monetary value of a food poverty line is most often based on the cost of affording a minimum energy intake using locally available goods − this is known as the food energy intake method. A global standard for the threshold of food poverty is 2,100 kcal per adult per day, which is the Food and Agriculture Organization’s recommended daily energy intake to enable an adult to live a healthy and moderately active life.2 As the costs of non-food essentials are not included, the food poverty line is often considered the most extreme measurement of monetary deprivation. Higher poverty measures, such as national poverty lines, consider the cost of a combination of both food and non-food essentials (for example, housing, clothing, education, and access to water, sanitation and electricity). People living in food poverty are forced to choose between food and non-food essentials on a daily basis.