List of countries by proportion of malnourished people

Food situation worldwide

The following list of countries according to the proportion of undernourished people sorts countries according to the proportion of people who are underweight. Reasons for malnutrition can be poverty, underdevelopment, wars or insufficiently increasing capacity for food production while the population is growing rapidly. According to the UN, there were 795 million malnourished people worldwide in 2014, the vast majority of whom lived in Asia and Africa.

List of countries / territories

Proportion of the population that is undernourished as a proportion of the total population in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015. Source is the World Bank .

country	Share in 2000 population	Share of the population in 2005	Share of the population in 2010	Share of the population in 2015
Central African Republic	42.6%	39.9%	33.3%	58.6%
Haiti	54.9%	57.1%	49.5%	46.8%
Zambia	47.6%	51.3%	49.7%	45.9%
Zimbabwe	43.3%	40.0%	32.7%	44.7%
Liberia	38.4%	39.4%	36.5%	42.8%
Madagascar	34.2%	35.1%	31.9%	42.3%
Rwanda	54.9%	44.5%	34.2%	41.1%
North Korea	37.5%	35.4%	41.8%	40.8%
Uganda	27.9%	24.3%	31.0%	39.0%
Chad	40.1%	39.2%	39.9%	32.5%
Tanzania	36.7%	34.6%	34.7%	32.3%
Sierra Leone	39.9%	37.4%	27.1%	30.9%
Tajikistan	42.4%	41.5%	37.8%	30.1%
Yemen	29.9%	30.1%	25.7%	28.8%
Namibia	26.3%	25.2%	37.6%	28.8%
Ethiopia	51.9%	39.7%	32.1%	28.8%
Guinea-Bissau	26.4%	24.9%	22.8%	28.3%
Republic of the Congo	32.5%	33.4%	30.8%	28.2%
Iraq	28.3%	28.2%	27.2%	27.8%
East Timor	40.8%	31.9%	31.3%	26.9%
Mozambique	40.3%	37.0%	30.0%	26.6%
Botswana	35.6%	32.0%	28.6%	26.0%
Malawi	27.1%	26.2%	21.7%	25.9%
Sudan	...	...	...	25.6%
Afghanistan	46.1%	33.2%	22.3%	23.0%
Sri Lanka	29.6%	29.4%	25.7%	22.1%
Bolivia	33.4%	30.3%	26.5%	20.2%
Burkina Faso	25.4%	24.9%	21.2%	20.2%
Pakistan	23.4%	23.3%	21.1%	19.9%
Mongolia	35.1%	31.0%	20.8%	19.6%
Swaziland	19.3%	17.3%	23.7%	19.6%
Kenya	32.2%	28.7%	23.7%	19.1%
Niger	37.4%	24.7%	18.7%	18.7%
Guinea	26.3%	21.4%	17.7%	17.5%
Laos	37.6%	26.8%	20.7%	17.1%
Nicaragua	32.6%	24.4%	20.9%	17.0%
Myanmar	48.4%	32.1%	16.9%	16.9%
Guatemala	20.7%	16.0%	15.6%	15.6%
Ivory Coast	17.6%	16.2%	16.5%	15.4%
Cambodia	29.2%	20.0%	18.8%	15.3%
Bangladesh	20.8%	16.6%	16.9%	15.1%
Honduras	19.6%	17.2%	15.5%	14.8%
Lesotho	13.7%	11.7%	12.8%	14.5%
India	17.2%	20.5%	15.6%	14.5%
Angola	50.0%	32.1%	19.4%	14.0%
Solomon Islands	15.1%	11.9%	10.6%	13.9%
Philippines	20.4%	16.3%	13.4%	13.8%
Cape Verde	17.8%	14.4%	15.8%	13.7%
Sao Tome and Principe	18.1%	9.6%	15.0%	13.5%
Dominican Republic	28.1%	24.4%	16.5%	13.5%
Venezuela	16.4%	10.5%	<5%	13.0%
Djibouti	48.1%	32.5%	22.3%	12.8%
El Salvador	11.2%	10.7%	12.7%	12.3%
Ecuador	18.5%	17.0%	12.2%	12.1%
Paraguay	12.9%	11.9%	12.2%	12.0%
Togo	30.4%	25.6%	20.8%	11.5%
Senegal	28.5%	21.3%	13.0%	11.3%
Gambia	13.1%	15.1%	9.2%	10.9%
Vietnam	24.3%	18.2%	13.6%	10.7%
World average	14.8%	14.1%	11.5%	10.7%
Benin	22.6%	15.4%	12.1%	10.3%
Bahamas	6.9%	10.0%	12.3%	10.0%
People's Republic of China	15.9%	15.3%	11.9%	9.6%
Thailand	18.8%	12.3%	9.3%	9.5%
Panama	27.7%	23.1%	13.4%	9.3%
Moldova	19.6%	24.2%	13.9%	8.5%
Maldives	14.0%	16.9%	10.0%	8.5%
Guyana	8.3%	9.1%	11.5%	8.5%
Jamaica	7.3%	6.9%	8.8%	8.4%
Nepal	22.0%	15.9%	10.1%	8.1%
Indonesia	17.8%	18.6%	12.5%	7.9%
Suriname	12.9%	11.1%	8.0%	7.9%
Cameroon	30.6%	20.2%	11.6%	7.9%
Nigeria	9.4%	6.6%	6.3%	7.9%
Peru	21.8%	19.6%	11.2%	7.9%
Ghana	15.9%	9.3%	5.4%	7.6%
Colombia	9.7%	9.7%	11.1%	7.1%
Gabon	9.4%	9.7%	9.4%	7.0%
Georgia	13.7%	7.4%	8.0%	7.0%
Vanuatu	8.2%	7.0%	5.9%	6.9%
Kyrgyzstan	16.3%	9.7%	8.2%	6.4%
Uzbekistan	16.4%	14.5%	8.8%	6.3%
Belize	5.8%	<5%	5.6%	6.2%
Oman	11.8%	10.0%	5.4%	6.2%
St. Vincent and the Grenadines	16.7%	9.1%	6.7%	6.0%
Dominica	<5%	5.7%	5.2%	5.8%
Costa Rica	5.1%	5.4%	5.2%	5.6%
Serbia	...	...	5.9%	5.6%
Iran	<5%	6.1%	5.8%	5.5%
Turkmenistan	8.2%	<5%	<5%	5.5%
Lebanon	<5%	<5%	<5%	5.4%
Mauritania	11.7%	12.2%	8.3%	5.3%
Mauritius	6.6%	5.2%	<5%	5.2%
Armenia	23.8%	8.0%	5.8%	<5%
Bulgaria	5.3%	6.5%	5.6%	<5%
Saudi Arabia	6.2%	8.0%	6.9%	<5%
Jordan	8.1%	<5%	<5%	<5%
United Arab Emirates	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Turkey	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Algeria	10.7%	8.8%	6.3%	<5%
Kazakhstan	5.9%	5.8%	<5%	<5%
Trinidad and Tobago	11.6%	11.8%	9.6%	<5%
Kuwait	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Albania	7.2%	11.1%	7.6%	<5%
South Korea	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Croatia	10.4%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Kiribati	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Chile	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Azerbaijan	23.2%	5.7%	<5%	<5%
Mexico	<5%	5.5%	<5%	<5%
Malaysia	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Argentina	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Russia	5.1%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Romania	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Mali	14.6%	11.2%	7.1%	<5%
Morocco	6.8%	5.8%	5.3%	<5%
Fiji	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
South Africa	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
North Macedonia	7.9%	6.1%	<5%	<5%
Egypt	5.3%	5.4%	<5%	<5%
Bosnia and Herzegovina	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Uruguay	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Tunisia	<5%	5.6%	<5%	<5%
Cuba	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Brazil	12.0%	6.2%	<5%	<5%
Samoa	5.3%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Ukraine	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Brunei	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
Barbados	5.4%	5.9%	<5%	<5%
Belarus	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%

List by world region

Proportion of the population that is undernourished as a proportion of the total population in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015 in different regions. The source is the World Bank.

region	Share in 2000 population	Share of the population in 2005	Share of the population in 2010	Share of the population in 2015
Sub-Saharan Africa	27.0%	22.7%	19.8%	20.1%
South asia	18.8%	20.7%	16.4%	15.3%
East Asia and the Pacific	16.2%	14.9%	11.5%	9.4%
Middle East and North Africa	9.4%	9.6%	8.6%	8.4%
Latin America and the Caribbean	12.0%	9.0%	6.9%	6.6%
Europe and Central Asia	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
North America	<5%	<5%	<5%	<5%
world	14.8%	14.5%	11.8%	10.6%

Historical development

According to the UN, there were 795 million malnourished people worldwide in 2014. In 1990 there were 1.011 billion people. The proportion of undernourished people thus fell from approx. 19% in 1990 to 11.4% in 2014. In 1970 it was still 37%. Historians assume that up to the age of industrialization, over 90% of the world's population lived on the verge of hunger.

Individual evidence

1. ^ The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015. (No longer available online.) UN, formerly in the original ; accessed in 2017 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
2. ↑ ^{a b} Prevalence of undernourishment (% of population) | Data. Retrieved August 22, 2017 (American English).