IPC phase classification explained: from Phase 1 to famine

What the IPC is

IPC stands for Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. It is a partnership of UN agencies, NGOs, governments and regional bodies, including FAO, UNICEF, WFP and WHO, that gives everyone a common scale for how severe food insecurity and malnutrition are. In each country, analysis is led by a technical working group of government, UN and NGO representatives.

The IPC runs three linked scales: acute food insecurity (the one most news reports refer to), chronic food insecurity, and acute malnutrition. When people talk about "IPC Phase 3" or "Phase 5", they usually mean the acute food insecurity scale.

The five IPC phases

The IPC describes each phase in terms of what households can and cannot do:

• Phase 1, None/Minimal: households can meet essential food and non-food needs without unusual or unsustainable ways of getting food and income.
• Phase 2, Stressed: households have minimally adequate food, but cannot afford some essential non-food needs without stress-coping strategies.
• Phase 3, Crisis: households either have food gaps reflected in high or above-usual acute malnutrition, or can only just meet minimum food needs by depleting essential livelihood assets or through crisis-coping strategies.
• Phase 4, Emergency: households either have large food gaps reflected in very high acute malnutrition and excess deaths, or can close those gaps only through emergency livelihood strategies and selling off assets.
• Phase 5, Catastrophe/Famine: households have an extreme lack of food and/or other basic needs even after using every coping strategy. Starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition are evident.

What counts as famine

Famine is a classification for an area, not a household. The IPC defines it as a situation in which at least one in five households has an extreme lack of food and faces starvation and destitution, with extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition and death. All three thresholds matter: 20% of households with an extreme lack of food, acute malnutrition in children under five at or above 30%, and at least 2 deaths per 10,000 people a day.

Catastrophe (Phase 5) can also be found at household level. Some households can be in Catastrophe even when their area is not in Famine, for example when fewer than 20% of people face those conditions, or malnutrition and death rates have not reached the famine thresholds.

The IPC classifies famine "with solid evidence" when there is clear evidence on food deprivation, malnutrition and mortality, and "with reasonable evidence" when two of the three thresholds are clearly reached and analysts judge from wider evidence that the third likely has been. A "risk of Famine" statement is different: it describes a realistic worst case, not a classification.

The acute malnutrition scale

The IPC's acute malnutrition scale looks at children rather than households. It identifies areas with a large proportion of children who are wasted (too thin) and/or have oedema, which is how Global Acute Malnutrition is measured. Its phases run from Acceptable to Alert and more severe levels, and they are classified separately from food insecurity.

In Gaza, the four analysed governorates were in Acute Malnutrition Phase 1 (Acceptable) between mid-April and June 2026, and were projected to be in Phase 2 (Alert) from July to December 2026. Our page on malnutrition in Gaza covers the underlying survey.

How the phases apply to Gaza

Gaza has moved through several phases in the past year:

• August 2025: famine confirmed in Gaza Governorate on reasonable evidence. More than 640,000 people across the Strip were projected to face Phase 5 by the end of September, with 1.14 million in Phase 4 and 396,000 in Phase 3.
• December 2025: no area in famine. At least 1.6 million people (77%) faced high levels of acute food insecurity, and four governorates, including Gaza Governorate, were classified in Phase 4 (Emergency).
• July 2026: the entire Strip in Phase 3 (Crisis). UN News reported 1.4 million people (67%) in Phase 3 or above, and about 212,000 still in Phase 4.