What is famine? How the world decides when hunger becomes catastrophe
Famine has a precise meaning. Here is how the IPC classifies hunger in five phases, and why the word matters for getting help to people.
“Famine” is often used loosely to mean severe hunger. In humanitarian work it has a precise meaning, and declaring it is a serious step. Understanding how it works helps make sense of the news from Gaza, Sudan and elsewhere.
The IPC: a common scale for hunger
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is a system used by governments, UN agencies and aid organisations to measure how severe hunger is in a place. Independent experts analyse data on food consumption, malnutrition and deaths, and classify areas and populations into five phases:
- Minimal: households can meet their basic food needs.
- Stressed: households can just about eat enough, but cannot afford other essentials without difficulty.
- Crisis: households have significant food gaps or survive only by selling things they need, such as livestock or tools.
- Emergency: very large food gaps, high levels of acute malnutrition and rising deaths.
- Catastrophe / Famine: an extreme lack of food, starvation, death and destitution.
When you read that “half the population faces crisis-level food insecurity or worse”, it means half the population is in Phase 3, 4 or 5.
When is it officially “famine”?
An area is classified as being in Famine only when three thresholds are all met:
- at least 20% of households face an extreme lack of food;
- at least 30% of children are acutely malnourished;
- and at least two people in every 10,000 die each day from starvation, or from malnutrition combined with disease.
Because it requires such strong evidence, a famine classification is reviewed by an independent Famine Review Committee. Sometimes data cannot be collected at all because of fighting or access restrictions, which is why experts sometimes warn of a “risk of famine” or of “famine conditions” even when a formal classification is not possible.
Recent famines
In August 2024, famine was confirmed in Zamzam camp in North Darfur, Sudan. In August 2025, the IPC confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate, the first famine ever confirmed in the Middle East. In 2026, the IPC warned that more than half of Gaza’s population still faced crisis-level hunger or worse, and famine monitors expected Catastrophe-level conditions in camps across Darfur and Kordofan.
Why the word matters
By the time famine is declared, people are already dying. The value of the IPC is that it warns earlier: Phases 3 and 4 are the signal to act before conditions reach Phase 5.
That is also where donations make the biggest difference. Food, cash assistance and treatment for malnourished children, delivered early, can stop a crisis from becoming a catastrophe.
How you can help
Organisations such as the World Food Programme, UNICEF (which treats child malnutrition) and Doctors Without Borders work in every crisis where famine is a risk. See the crises we follow and the charities working in each.
