Number of hungry people increased in 1990s
Regional, Economics, 11/25/2003

The number of hungry people in the world increased in the second half of the 1990s, reversing a decrease in world hunger during the first half of the decade, the United Nations reports.

In a November 25 press release, the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said that unless the number of people experiencing chronic hunger is reduced by 26 million a year, the international agreed goal of significantly reducing hunger by 2015 cannot be achieved. The goal was adopted at the 2002 World Food Summit in Rome. Twenty-six million people is 12 times the number of people lifted from chronic hunger during the 1990s, the FAO said.

The agency's recently released report, "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2003," says 842 million people were undernourished in 1999-2001, the latest period for which statistics were available, according to the release.

Only 19 countries, FAO said, reduced the number of undernourished throughout the 1990s while in 26 countries the number of hungry people increased. Hunger went down in 22 countries during the second half of the 1990s, it said.

The release said hunger persists in countries that have frequent food emergencies, such as famines, and high rates of HIV/AIDS.

It said trade and improved farm productivity in poor countries can have a major impact on reducing world hunger.

To help guide countries in their efforts to reduce countries, FAO has proposed an Anti-Hunger Program. The program would join governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector to "mobilize the political will, technical expertise and financial resources to reduce the number of hungry people by at least half by 2015," according to Hartwig de Haen, a FAO assistant director-general.

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