Over a third of Kenyans starving, 18pc children stunted

At least 37 per cent of Kenyans are starving amid the country’s catastrophic food security crisis.

The 2025 Global Hunger Index shows that 18 per cent of children under the age of five are stunted, despite efforts to improve child nutrition. This percentage shows that these children do not have proper brain development.

Kenya is the worst in the East African region.

The Global Hunger Index 2025 assigns Kenya a score of 25.9. By scoring low in the index of 2025, Kenya has been placed in the serious hunger category by the report. 

Kenya’s hunger index, shaped by high under-five-year-olds mortality rates and child wasting, recorded a steady decline between 2006 and 2016, after which it stalled. Kenya ranked 103 out of 123 of the countries that were assessed.

“This ranking means we are raising a hungry nation, and hungry nation is an angry nation. Something needs to be done,” Edgar Okoth Executive Director, SUN Civil Society Alliance.

Kenya has been ranked at close range with conflict-struck Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria and is slightly above war-hit Haiti, DR Congo, South Sudan and Somalia, which have been placed under the alarming category.

Globally, the world risks not achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: Zero Hunger, which aims to end global Hunger by 2030.

The persistent hunger has been attributed to climate shocks that are worsening food insecurity, concentration of food insecurity in arid and semi-arid lands and low agricultural investments.

According to the report, rising public debt is a major driver of hunger in Kenya, together with climate-sensitive agricultural production systems as well as weak market and coordination systems. 

Incomplete irrigation and infrastructure projects have been attributed to the hunger status in the country since 2016.

This suggests that improvements in health outcomes have not translated into improved food access and affordability. Okoth said that for the country to have economic growth, it must fight hunger to ensure economic productivity.

“For us to thrive, we need to ensure we fight hunger,” Okoth said. According to Okoth, Kenya, is likely to meet the Zero Hunger SDG 2.

“Within a growing population of children under the age of five, one in every three is hungry,” he notes, adding that stunting is a poor marker of poor child development, and it is worrying that 17.9 per cent of children in Kenya do not have proper brain development.

More than 80 per cent of Kenya’s agriculture is rainfed, making food production highly vulnerable to drought and floods.

Kenya continues to fall short of the 10 per cent agricultural spending commitment under Maputo and Malabo declarations.

A 2025 Food and Agriculture Organisation report shows that nearly 300 million people on the continent are food insecure. According to the African Union (AU), the continent spends up to Sh12.9 billion each year on food imports.

Moses Vilakati, commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment, at the AU Commission, Africa faces food security challenges of unprecedented scale.

‘‘We must strengthen agrifood systems, invest in climate resilience, improve our soil productivity, expand social protection and safety nets, empower women,’’ Vilakati said. He added that there is need to strengthen youth across value chains, and promote innovation that improves productivity and market access, while mitigating food loss and wastage.