UN 
Featured photo: WFP/Arete/Ali Yunes.
Why this is not only a Middle East story
On 17 March 2026, the World Food Programme warned that global food insecurity could climb back toward record levels if the escalation in the Middle East continues through mid-year. WFP’s analysis estimates that almost 45 million more people could fall into acute food insecurity or worse in 2026 if oil prices remain above USD 100 a barrel. That would be on top of the 318 million people already facing acute hunger.
The reason is structural. The conflict is centered on a global energy hub, not a breadbasket region, but energy and food markets are tightly linked. When fuel costs rise, so do transportation, irrigation, fertilizer, and processing costs. In import-dependent countries, those increases move quickly into the price of staple food.
The warning echoes the 2022 shock
WFP says the world is at risk of returning to the kind of pressure seen at the start of the Ukraine war, when global hunger reached 349 million people. The comparison matters because it shows how fast food affordability can unravel after a geopolitical shock. During the 2022 crisis, prices spiked rapidly and took much longer to come down, trapping low-income households in a prolonged squeeze.
The latest WFP note suggests the same mechanism could play out again. A virtual shipping standstill in the Strait of Hormuz and rising risks to Red Sea traffic are already feeding higher energy, fuel, and fertilizer costs. For households already spending most of their income on food, there is not much buffer left.
Africa and Asia are most exposed
WFP’s regional breakdown shows where the pressure would land hardest. In West and Central Africa, 10.4 million more people could be pushed into acute food insecurity, a 21 percent increase. In East and Southern Africa, the increase could reach 17.7 million people, or 17.7 percent. In Asia, 9.1 million more people could be affected, a 24 percent jump.
The warning is especially serious for countries that already combine import dependence with climate stress or conflict. WFP notes that Sudan imports about 80 percent of its wheat. In Somalia, where drought is already straining households, local reports show some essential commodity prices have risen by at least 20 percent since the conflict began. In both cases, a fresh price shock arrives on top of existing fragility.
Hunger risk is colliding with aid cuts
The WFP analysis also lands at a time when humanitarian budgets are already under pressure. That makes this less of a classic market story and more of a systems failure risk. If food prices rise while assistance contracts, countries already close to emergency thresholds lose both market access and the fallback lifeline that prevents a deeper collapse.
This is why the Middle East escalation matters far beyond the region itself. It is testing how much resilience the global food system really has after years of inflation, climate shocks, debt distress, and shrinking humanitarian capacity.
What happens next
The policy question is not only whether oil prices stabilize. It is whether governments, donors, and agencies move fast enough to protect import-dependent countries from another affordability shock. If they do not, the next hunger spike will not look like an isolated humanitarian emergency. It will look like a global energy and food security failure unfolding in slow motion.
Sources
- WFP, WFP projects food insecurity could reach record levels as a result of Middle East escalation
