12.5m persons remain food insecure despite Q3 easing – GSS

By Juliet ETEFE

About 12.5 million Ghanaians remained food insecure in third quarter-2025 despite a modest improvement from the previous quarter, according to the latest Quarterly Food Insecurity Report by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).

The report shows that the national prevalence of food insecurity declined from a peak of 41.1 percent in second quarter-2025 to 38.1 percent in the third quarter. In absolute terms, the food insecure population fell slightly from 13.4 million to 12.5 million over the same period.

However, GSS cautioned that food insecurity remains significantly higher than levels recorded at the beginning of 2024, underscoring persistent vulnerability.

Gender and location disparities persist. “Food insecurity prevalence among female-headed households reached a maximum of 44.1 percent in 2025 Q1-Q2, compared with 38.7 percent among male-headed households. Despite a slight decline in 2025 Q3, a persistent gender gap remains,” the report stated.

Rural households continued to bear a disproportionate burden as across all Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) domains, while rural households recorded higher vulnerability than urban households.

Nationally, about 53 percent of households reported worrying about food access, with the share rising to about 62 percent in rural areas compared with 47 percent in urban centres.

Household composition also played a significant role. Those with both children and elderly members recorded the highest prevalence of moderate food insecurity at about 44 percent, followed by households with children only (40 percent), households with no dependents (38 percent) and elderly-only households (32 percent). These patterns were consistent across regions, highlighting the added strain of dependency on food access.

Regional

Disparities were also pronounced on regional basis. The Upper West, North East, Savannah and Volta Regions consistently recorded the highest levels of food insecurity, while Greater Accra and Oti Regions had the lowest prevalence.

Notably, food insecurity in the Oti Region declined from 23.8 percent to 18.4 percent, indicating relative improvement.

However, “Volta Region recorded the highest food insecurity among households with both elderly and children at 52.3% in 2025 Q3”.

Factors

Child nutrition outcomes were closely linked to household food insecurity. Nationally, households with malnourished children recorded an average food insecurity prevalence of about 44 percent. The situation was most severe in rural female-headed households with underweight children, where food insecurity exceeded 80 percent in third quarter-2025.

Education emerged as a strong protective factor. Food insecurity declined with higher educational attainment of household heads. In the second and third quarters of 2025, households headed by individuals with no education recorded food insecurity rates of about 50 percent, while those headed by persons with tertiary education recorded the lowest levels at around 15 percent. Across all education levels, female-headed households were slightly more food insecure than male-headed households.

Severe food insecurity showed a marginal improvement as nationally the prevalence declined from 5.1 percent in Q2 to 4.6 per cent in Q3 2025. However, severe food insecurity remained higher among rural female-headed households, peaking at 8.1 percent in Q2 before easing slightly in Q3.

Triple burden

The report also highlighted a “triple burden” of vulnerability. The number of persons who were food insecure, multidimensionally poor and unemployed increased from 208,064 in Q2 to 227,519 in Q3 2025.

“Despite this, the number of persons who were only food insecure was highest in Q2 2025 at 4,072,199. The percentage increase in food insecure, multidimensionally poor and unemployed persons was marginal at 9.4%,” the report added.

Recommendations

Presenting the report, Government Statistician Dr. Alhassan Iddrisu urged policymakers and development partners to adopt targetted, region-specific interventions rather than one-size-fits-all approaches.

He recommended expanding nutrition-sensitive social protection, especially for female-headed households and families with children and elderly members, while linking food security strategies to jobs, education, health and climate resilience.

GSS also called on MMDAs, development partners, civil society and the private sector to use district-level data to better target vulnerable communities, strengthen community nutrition and livelihood programmes, sustain regular monitoring systems and support livelihood diversification and affordable nutrition initiatives.

The post 12.5m persons remain food insecure despite Q3 easing – GSS appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.

Read Full Story