The number of people suffering from chronic hunger around the world has dropped by 209 million since 1990-92 but still stands at 805 million – or one in nine people, according to the latest estimates from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
RICE TERRACES IN CHINA: China alone has reduced the number of undernourished people by 138 million since 1990-92. PICTURE: Paul Segal/www.freeimages.com
Released last week, the data also shows that the prevalence of undernourishment globally has dropped from 18.7 per cent to 11.3 per cent over the same period with the change particularly significant in developing countries, where the drop has been from 23.4 per cent to 13.5 per cent.
The data is contained in a report – State of Food Insecurity in the World (SOFI 2014) – which says the trends show that the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of undernourished people by 2015 is still within reach “if appropriate and immediate efforts are stepped up”.
It says some 63 developing countries have already reached the MDG target and six more are on track to do so by 2015. In broad terms, East Asia, South-East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean have all reached the MDG target.
But the data shows that despite overall progress in tackling global hunger, some regions of the world continue to lag behind. Among them is sub-Saharan Africa where more than one in four people are still chronically undernourished and Asia which, while the world’s most populous region, is also home to the majority of the world’s hungry – 526 million people. Southern Asia accounts for more than a third of the world’s hungry and Eastern Asia a fifth. Of the 805 million people living in chronic hunger, 791 million live in developing countries.
Among the nations which have seen the greatest success in reducing the proportion of chronic hungry within their borders over the 20 years from 1990-92 are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Cuba, Georgia, Ghana, Kuwait, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Thailand and Venezuela. Meanwhile, China alone has reduced the number of undernourished people by 138 million in the same period.
