When debt, diet and development risk collide: hidden links between high debt and nutrition gaps

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Around the world, many countries are carrying heavy debt burdens while also confronting a wide range of structural risks — from macroeconomic instability and climate pressures to food and nutrition insecurity and social vulnerability. These national challenges shape people’s livelihoods, wellbeing, and opportunities in real and immediate ways.

The 2025 International Debt Report (IDR2025) highlights how these pressures converge: It shows countries with heaviest debt burden also face the least affordable nutritious food and the weakest resilience.

These findings show that debt pressures interact with broader development risks rather than unfolding in isolation. Recognizing how these factors align helps identify where vulnerabilities are building, setting the stage for a deeper look at how debt, food and nutrition insecurity, and national resilience intersect.

In countries with high debt burdens, healthy diets tend to be far less affordable

^{Note: Bubble size represents the population unable to afford a healthy diet in each country. Data are from the International Debt Statistics (IDS) and Food Prices for Nutrition (FPN) databases. Chart adapted from analysis featured in IDR 2025.}

The affordability of a healthy diet — jointly produced by FAO and the World Bank — is an important marker of nutrition security. It measures the share of the population whose disposable income is sufficient to cover the minimum cost of meeting basic dietary needs for long-term health (FAO et al. 2025; Fu et al. 2025), providing a national benchmark for how accessible the foods needed for a healthy diet are within the markets.

When we compare the latest 2024 unaffordability estimates with countries’ external debt burdens, a striking pattern displays. Countries with debt stocks above 200 percent of exports consistently exhibit high levels of healthy diet unaffordability. Across the 22 countries above this threshold, an average of 56 percent of people cannot afford a healthy diet — far above the 42 percent average observed across the 90 low- and lower-middle-income countries in our analysis. Notably, 17 of these 22 high-debt countries are IDA-eligible economies, where average unaffordability rises to about 62 percent. When healthy diets are out of reach, the consequences can take many forms — from not getting enough essential nutrients to relying on cheaper and unhealthy foods — both of which can harm human health and limit productivity over time.

According to the latest data, most countries that exceed both thresholds — debt stocks above 200 percent of exports (or debt service above 20 percent) and healthy-diet unaffordability above 40 percent — are in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan regions.

Even an energy sufficient, survival-level diet is unaffordable for many in high-debt countries

^{Note: Bubble size represents the population who are unable to afford an energy sufficient diet in each country. Data are from the International Debt Statistics (IDS) and Food Prices for Nutrition (FPN) databases. Chart adapted from analysis featured in IDR 2025.}

To assess the depth of affordability constraints, the report also examines the minimum-cost diet that provides just enough calories from starchy staple foods for basic survival. This benchmark sits below the healthy-diet measure and shows whether people can afford even the most basic foods for daily energy needs.

At this survival level, the overlap with debt burdens remains clear. Across these 22 high-debt countries, on average, about one in four people cannot afford even a calorie-adequate diet. This degree of deprivation signals severe stress on human development. When people are unable to even meet basic dietary energy needs, the risks include acute hunger, and other severe forms of undernutrition that threaten immediate health.

High-debt countries also show higher national vulnerability

^{Note: Bubble size represents the total population in each country. Data are from the International Debt Statistics (IDS), World Development Indicators (WDI), and the INFORM Risk Index databases. Chart adapted from analysis featured in IDR 2025.}

Food and nutrition insecurity is only one dimension of the countries’ challenge. Many countries also face deeper structural weakness that influence their resilient to shocks and crises, and shape their long-term development trajectories.

To capture this broader picture, we use the INFORM Vulnerability Index, which reflects the structural fragilities that make development progress harder to sustain. The index brings together factors such as poverty and inequality, demographic pressures, food system weakness, health burdens, and institutional limitations — long-standing conditions that influence how significantly shocks and stresses affect people and slow development progress.

A consistent pattern emerges. Countries with heavy external debt burdens often show higher overall vulnerability. Many of the same countries where debt levels are high and nutritious foods and healthy diets are least affordable are also more vulnerable to crises — whether they stem from global food price spikes, climate events, public health emergencies, or economic downturns. These overlapping pressures make it harder for governments to respond and harder for people to recover.

Why this matters

These three indicators — heavy debt burdens, unaffordable healthy and even sufficient basic energy diets, and high national vulnerability — point to a clear and concerning pattern: countries carrying the largest external debt burdens often face the greatest obstacles to securing food and nutrition and to building resilience to shocks and crises.

These indicators also highlight settings where debt pressures may interact with existing structural fragilities in ways that complicate development progress. Seeing these pressures together underscores the importance of assessing debt within a broader development lens. When debt levels are viewed alongside social, institutional, and human conditions, it becomes easier to identify where vulnerabilities are accumulating and where support is most needed.