Hun­ger is fall­ing across South­east Asia. The region’s next chal­lenge is more demand­ing: ensur­ing that every­one can afford a healthy diet, not merely enough cal­or­ies to sur­vive.

South­east Asia’s hun­ger rate fell to 5.1% in 2025, its low­est level on record and down from the pan­demic peak of 5.9% in 2020. About 35 mil­lion people faced hun­ger, roughly half the 70 mil­lion recor­ded in 2010. Over the same period, South­east Asia’s share of the world’s hungry fell from about 11% to about 5%.

Mod­er­ate or severe food insec­ur­ity, which includes people forced to skip meals or reduce how much they eat, also declined. It fell to 12.8% in 2025 from a pan­demic peak of 15.3%, mean­ing that 14 mil­lion fewer people faced food insec­ur­ity than in 2020.

This pro­gress did not hap­pen by acci­dent. It reflects sus­tained invest­ment in agri­cul­tural pro­ductiv­ity, irrig­a­tion, logist­ics, food dis­tri­bu­tion and nutri­tion. Indone­sia alloc­ated about $8.8 bil­lion (295.8 bil­lion baht) to food secur­ity in 2025 and increased the alloc­a­tion to nearly $12 bil­lion in 2026. Viet­nam paired its emer­gence as a major rice exporter with the achieve­ment of national food secur­ity, show­ing that par­ti­cip­a­tion in inter­na­tional mar­kets and domestic food access can rein­force one another.

The decline reaches across almost every coun­try in the sub­re­gion. Since the mid 2000s, Cam­bodia has reduced its hun­ger rate from 15.5% to 4.7%. Indone­sia brought its rate down from 18.4% to 6.3%; the Phil­ip­pines from 17.3% to 3.4%; and Viet­nam from 15.2% to 6.1%. Malay­sia has reduced hun­ger below 2.5%.

These fig­ures, from the 2026 edi­tion of “The State of Food Secur­ity and Nutri­tion in the World”, show that hun­ger falls when agri­cul­tural, eco­nomic and social policies rein­force one another. Irrig­a­tion raises and sta­bil­ises pro­duc­tion. Logist­ics con­nect farm­ers to mar­kets. Trade cre­ates oppor­tun­it­ies for pro­du­cers. Nutri­tion and social pro­grammes pro­tect vul­ner­able house­holds.

There is no single South­east Asian model that every coun­try can copy. But there is a con­sist­ent les­son: delib­er­ate invest­ment in food sys­tems can bend the hun­ger curve.

The pro­gress, however, remains fra­gile and uneven.

Timor-Leste still has the highest hun­ger rate in the sub­re­gion, at 16.9%, even after redu­cing it from 28.8% since the mid-2000s. The lar­ger divide is no longer only between those who have enough food and those who do not. It is between those who can afford to eat well and those who can­not.

Indone­sia and the Phil­ip­pines also have sub­stan­tial ground to cover. About 68.6% of Indone­sians and 45% of Filipi­nos can­not afford a healthy diet. Viet­nam and Malay­sia demon­strate that this out­come is not inev­it­able. Only 7% of people in Viet­nam and 1.4% in Malay­sia can­not afford one.

South­east Asia has there­fore made genu­ine pro­gress against hun­ger meas­ured through cal­orie depriva­tion. But obtain­ing enough cal­or­ies is no longer the sub­re­gion’s only, or even its largest, food chal­lenge.

A diet that pre­vents hun­ger does not neces­sar­ily pre­vent anemia, child stunt­ing, obesity, dia­betes and other forms of mal­nu­tri­tion. A genu­inely healthy diet requires enough fruits, veget­ables and animal source foods to provide the nutri­ents needed for an act­ive and healthy life.

Such a diet costs an aver­age of 5.19 pur­chas­ing power par­ity dol­lars per per­son per day in South­east Asia, more than any­where else in Asia and more than in most of the world. Nearly half of the sub­re­gion’s pop­u­la­tion, about 325 mil­lion people, still can­not afford one.

Cal­or­ies have become more access­ible. Nutri­tion remains expens­ive.

Clos­ing the gap between cal­orie suf­fi­ciency and nutri­tional adequacy is South­east Asia’s next chal­lenge. It will require the same determ­in­a­tion and sus­tained invest­ment that helped close much of the hun­ger gap, but the tar­get of that invest­ment must now change.

Fruit is the food group con­trib­ut­ing most to the high cost of a healthy diet in the sub­re­gion. Because fruit is per­ish­able, its final price depends not only on what hap­pens on farms but also on stor­age, refri­ger­a­tion, trans­port­a­tion, energy, whole­sale mar­kets and retail dis­tri­bu­tion. Weak­nesses at any point in that chain trans­late into losses and higher prices for con­sumers.

This is not simply a pro­duc­tion prob­lem. It is a mid­stream prob­lem.

The response must there­fore be more pre­cise than pro­du­cing more food or intro­du­cing broad new farm sub­sidies. Gov­ern­ments should invest in the sup­ply chains that move nutri­tious food effi­ciently from farms to cit­ies: cold stor­age, pack­houses, rural roads, reli­able energy, mod­ern whole­sale mar­kets, pro­cessing capa­city and com­pet­it­ive trans­port­a­tion.

Indone­sia and Viet­nam already pos­sess much of the irrig­a­tion and logist­ics infra­struc­ture that sup­por­ted their pro­gress against hun­ger. They are well posi­tioned to extend that suc­cess to fruit, veget­ables and other nutri­ent-rich foods. But the same invest­ments must reach under­served regions, small-scale pro­du­cers and lower-income con­sumers.

Sequen­cing also mat­ters. Expand­ing school meals, food vouch­ers or other meas­ures that increase demand before sup­ply can respond may raise local prices and exclude the very house­holds those policies are inten­ded to sup­port. Invest­ment in pro­duc­tion and sup­ply chains must pre­cede, or at least accom­pany, pro­grammes that stim­u­late demand.

A dec­ade ago, Cam­bodia, Indone­sia, the Phil­ip­pines and Viet­nam might have appeared to be four unre­lated suc­cess stor­ies. We now know that their pro­gress shared a com­mon found­a­tion: delib­er­ate invest­ment in irrig­a­tion, logist­ics and food sys­tems cap­able of reach­ing large pop­u­la­tions.

Mak­ing healthy diets afford­able will require the same approach, dir­ec­ted this time towards the fruit and veget­able sup­ply chains that keep nutri­tious foods expens­ive.

South­east Asia has proved that it can reduce hun­ger. It must now prove that a healthy diet need not remain a priv­ilege.

This article was first published in Bangkok Post on July 31, 2026.

(Photo by FAO/Manan Vatsyayana)