Around 4.8 million Moroccans couldn’t afford a healthy diet in 2025, even as Morocco remained the least expensive country in North Africa for healthy eating, according to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report.
Published jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO), the report found that the figure returned to the same level recorded in 2017, although the share of the population unable to afford a healthy diet fell from 13.7% to 12.4%.
Across North Africa, the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet rose from 88 million in 2017 to 96.1 million in 2025, with the figure increasing from 17.2 million to 18.4 million in Algeria and from 41.7 million to 45.5 million in Egypt over the same period.
The cost of a healthy diet also continued to rise across North Africa, reaching the equivalent of $5.24 per person per day in 2025, up from around $3.52 in 2017.
Morocco remained the least expensive country in the region at $3.64 per day, compared with $5.56 in Algeria, $5.22 in Tunisia, and $6.06 in Egypt.
The number of undernourished people across North Africa also more than doubled, rising from 13 million in 2004-2006 to 27.2 million in 2023-2025.
In Morocco, the figure increased from 1.5 million to 2.5 million over the same period, while in Egypt it nearly doubled, climbing from 4.7 million to 9.8 million.
The region saw obesity continue to climb, with the prevalence among adults rising from 26% in 2012 to 31.5% in 2024, bringing the number of obese adults to 53.5 million, up from 34.6 million.
In Morocco, the number of obese adults rose from 3.7 million in 2012 to 5.7 million in 2024. The figure reached 7.1 million in Algeria and 31.9 million in Egypt, up from 4.7 million and 21.1 million, respectively.
Yet, child stunting improved across North Africa, with the number of affected children falling from 6.3 million in 2012 to 5.2 million in 2024.
Morocco and Algeria each saw the number decline from 500,000 to 400,000 between 2012 and 2024, while Egypt recorded a larger decline, from 2.8 million to 1.5 million.a
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