Donate Crypto to Hunger and Poverty Relief

“Hunger” covers very different situations. A family in a besieged town with no food on the market needs food delivered. A farming family that runs short every lean season needs a better harvest. A working parent in a European city needs a food bank and a fairer rent. Good giving starts with knowing which of these you are funding.

What “famine” officially means

Famine is not a word for any bad hunger crisis. Aid agencies and governments use the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which grades areas on a five-step scale:

Phase	In practice
1 · None/Minimal	Households can meet their food needs
2 · Stressed	Families get by, but can’t afford other essentials without cutting back
3 · Crisis	Gaps in food, high malnutrition, or selling assets to eat
4 · Emergency	Large food gaps, very high malnutrition and excess deaths
5 · Catastrophe/Famine	Starvation, death and destitution are evident

An area is classified as being in famine only when three thresholds are all met: at least one in five households has an extreme lack of food, at least 30% of children under five are acutely malnourished, and at least 2 people in every 10,000 die each day.

By that strict definition, famine returned in recent years. In Sudan, famine was confirmed in Zamzam camp in August 2024 and in El Fasher and Kadugli in November 2025. The analysis published in May 2026 found no area currently in famine, but nearly 19.5 million people, about two in five, in Phase 3 or worse, and 14 areas at risk of famine. In Gaza, famine was confirmed in Gaza Governorate in August 2025. After aid access improved, later analyses in December 2025 and July 2026 found no area in famine, but the latest still placed about two-thirds of the population in Crisis or worse for the second half of 2026 and warned that even small disruptions to aid could reverse the gains. These classifications change as conditions do. The Sudan Famine Response Coalition funds food deliveries into famine-hit areas of Sudan where commercial supply routes are cut off.

Food, cash or vouchers?

Where markets still work, giving people money usually stretches further than shipping food. A CALP Network study of US$11.4 billion of humanitarian spending found cash assistance about 37.5% more efficient than food aid: on average 71–77% of a cash or voucher budget reached people directly, against 54–56% for in-kind food (reported in ALNAP’s State of the Humanitarian System, 2026). Cash also helps local traders: in a large study in Kenya, every dollar of cash transfers increased local economic activity by about 2.5 dollars, with little effect on prices (Econometrica, 2022).

But cash is not always the answer. A World Food Programme and IFPRI study that compared cash, vouchers and food of equal value in Ecuador, Niger, Uganda and Yemen found cash was always cheaper to deliver, but in Niger, where markets were weakest, food did more to improve diets. In a besieged town or an empty market, money buys nothing.

Situation	What usually helps most	Example from our list
Markets are working	Cash or vouchers	Rent assistance for working households in Canada
Prices have collapsed or soared	Food baskets or vouchers	Monthly food baskets in Venezuela
Roads cut, markets empty	Food delivered directly	Rations for displaced farming families in Niger; food for blockaded towns in Burkina Faso
Children already malnourished	Specialized nutrition treatment	See our health and children’s causes

Helping farmers withstand the next drought

Most of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas and depend on farming, so a failed harvest can wipe out a year’s income and food at once. In Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, conservation agriculture (minimal tilling, mulching and crop rotation) has brought large yield gains in drought years compared with conventional ploughing, according to CGIAR research. The causes we list fund conservation farming training in Zambia through the Smallholder Farmer Support Fund, drought-tolerant seed and small-scale irrigation in Zimbabwe, shared irrigation for farming cooperatives in India and Malawi, seeds and tools for families in Cameroon’s Far North, and drought-resilience programmes in southern Madagascar, where harvests have failed repeatedly.

Feeding children at school

At least 466 million children receive school meals worldwide. A 2021 analysis by the World Food Programme with Harvard researchers estimated returns of up to $9 for every $1 invested, and five of six studies in a systematic review by the research group 3ie (2015) found that school meals raised attendance. The Township Feeding Program funds daily meals for children in townships where household food insecurity is well above the national average.

Hunger and poverty in wealthy countries

Hunger in rich countries is mostly about income and housing costs rather than food supply. It is concentrated among people on low wages, older people living alone, and people without a home. The causes we list include:

• Food banks: restocking in UK cities, in Portuguese cities and in Sweden during winter, when demand peaks.
• Older people: free meals for poor and homeless seniors in Seoul, in a country where about 40% of people over 65 live in relative poverty, the highest rate in the OECD; meal delivery for older people living alone in rural Japan and northern Sweden.
• People without a home: emergency beds and hot meals in France and Germany, outreach to people sleeping rough in England, and family shelters in the United States.
• Working households: rent assistance in Canada, where full-time minimum-wage work can fall short of local housing costs.

How to tell lasting help from a one-off meal

Every Hunger & Poverty Relief cause we list

These range from famine response to food banks and farm support. Each one names its partner organization and when we last verified it.

Common questions

Should I give to emergency food or long-term farming support?

It depends where. Emergency food saves lives where famine or conflict has cut off supplies; seeds, irrigation and farming support reduce how often families face the next crisis. Our list includes both.

Is giving cash better than sending food?

Where markets still work, evidence shows cash usually reaches people more efficiently than shipped food. In famine zones and besieged areas, delivering food directly is often the only option.

Can I support hunger relief in my own country?

Several causes fund food banks, shelters and meals in the UK, Portugal, Sweden, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Canada and the United States.