ome 840 million men, women and children suffer chronic hunger, 799 million in the developing world, according to FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization). The United Nations food agency says this figure has been decreasing by barely 2.5 million per year over the last eight years, despite the pledge made at the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome – reiterated at a follow-up meeting five years later – to halve the number of hungry in the world by 2015.
The United Nations food agency says this figure has been decreasing by barely 2.5 million per year over the last eight years, despite the pledge made at the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome to halve the number of hungry in the world by 2015.
“These objectives present a challenge, but they are reachable,” says UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a statement released on the occasion of this year’s World food Day, adding that coordinated intervention in different areas is required to increase food production and distribution. Furthermore, Annan calls for a decisive commitment to the Millennium Goals as food security is linked to education, hygiene, gender equality, environmental sustainability and the reduction of infectious diseases.
This necessitates an ‘international alliance against hunger’ – also the theme of this year’s World Food Day – uniting governments, international organizations, civil society, the private sector, religious groups and single individuals. Among the hundreds of millions of people waiting for a mobilization of resources of this kind are the hundreds of thousands of internally placed people in Liberia, who have still not received international food aid due to ongoing insecurity in the country despite the August peace accords.
In the Teso district in Uganda too, 290,000 refugees are without food because of security problems. However, hunger is not only a consequence of war. It is also the result of poor government, as in North Korea. Here, 680,000 people, particularly the elderly, are to see their government food rations reduced. In Eritrea and other drought-stricken countries in the Horn of Africa, 300,000 people have seen the food rations supplied by WFP (World Food Program) drop by half due to insufficient funding.
The food-aid arm of the UN says $4.3 billion are required to feed at least 110 million people, but that it has only 15 per cent, or $600 million. Hunger kills, but so does malnutrition, through a reduction in immunity against disease. UNICEF warns that iodine deficiency dramatically increases the risk of mental retardation and learning difficulties, especially in children. Some 46 million youngsters are at risk, the vast majority in developing countries.
(From MISNA)