---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 23:25:14 +0100
From: Dave Gordon <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Progress in reducing hunger has virtually halted
Dear All
The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) published its annual
report this week 'The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2002'.
(Free at http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y7352e/Y7352e00.HTM)
The depressing FAO press release that accompanied the report
Ęs launch is
below
Dave
Progress in reducing hunger has virtually halted
Chronic hunger kills millions each year - especially children
ROME, 15 October 2002
-- Progress in reducing world hunger has virtually come to a halt, the
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in its annual report
"The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2002". As a result of hunger,
millions of people, including 6 million children under the age of five,
die each year. The report was released on the occasion of World Food
Day, 16 October.
FAO estimates, that there were around 840 million undernourished people
in 1998-2000, 799 million in the developing countries, 30 million in the
countries in transition and 11 million in the industrialized countries.
Between 1990-92 and 1998-2000, the number of undernourished people
decreased by barely 2.5 million per year and in most regions the number
of undernourished people may be actually growing. (*)
FAO claims that unless trends are sharply reversed, the world will be
very far from reaching the World Food Summit 1996 goal, to reduce the
number of hungry by half by 2015.
"The price we pay for this lack of progress is heavy," said FAO
Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf in the foreword to the report. "The
hungry themselves pay most immediately and most painfully. But the costs
are also crippling for their communities, their countries and the global
village that we all inhabit and share. To reach the goal of the World
Food Summit, the number of hungry people needs to be reduced by 24
million each year from now until 2015".
Each year, chronic hunger and malnutrition kills millions of people.
This "hidden famine" stunts their development, saps their strength and
cripples their immune system. Where hunger is widespread, mortality
rates for infants and children under five are high, and life expectancy
is low.
"In the worst affected countries, a newborn child can look forward to
an average of barely 38 years of healthy life, compared to over 70 years
of life in 24 wealthy nations." One in seven children born in poor
countries where hunger is most common will die before reaching the age
of five. Most children are dying because they lack adequate food and
essential nutrients, which leaves them weak, underweight and vulnerable.
These children are highly at risk from infectious diseases. The four
biggest killers of children in developing countries are diarrhoea, acute
respiratory illness, malaria and measles.
Over 2 billion people worldwide suffer from micronutrient malnutrition.
Their diets supply inadequate amounts of vitamins and minerals such as
vitamin A, iron, iodine, zinc and vitamin C. Micronutrients are
essential for human growth and development. Children and women are most
vulnerable to the lack of micronutrients. Between 100 and 140 million
children suffer from vitamin A deficiency, which can lead to blindness.
Some 20 million people worldwide are mentally handicapped as a result of
iodine deficiency.
"We do not have the excuse that we cannot grow enough food or that we
do not know enough about how to eliminate hunger. What remains to be
proven is that we care enough, that our expressions of concern in
international fora are more than rhetoric, that we will no longer accept
and ignore the suffering of 840 million hungry people or the daily death
toll of 25 000 victims of hunger and poverty," Dr. Diouf said.
The marginal gains in reducing the number of hungry are the result of
rapid progress in a few large countries, FAO said. "China alone has
reduced the number of undernourished people by 74 million since 1990-92.
Indonesia, Viet Nam, Thailand, Nigeria, Ghana and Peru have all achieved
reductions of more than 3 million. This helped to offset an increase of
96 million in 47 countries. If China is set aside, the number of
undernourished people in the rest of the developing world has increased
by more than 50 million since 1990-92."
Sub-Saharan Africa continues to have the highest prevalence of
undernourishment and also the largest increase in the number of
undernourished people. Most of theincrease took place in Central Africa,
mainly in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the
number of undernourished people has tripled.
West Africa, Southeast Asia and South America, have reduced
significantly both the prevalence and the number of undernourished
people. But prospects are troubling for Central America, the Near East
and East Asia, excluding China.
The picture is more encouraging if one looks at the number of hungry as
a proportion of a country's total population. "In the majority of
developing countries, the proportion has actually decreased since the
World Food Summit in 1996."
Most of the widespread hunger in a world of plenty results from
poverty, the report said. Other causes are droughts or floods, armed
conflict, political, social and economic disruptions. Around 30
countries are currently facing exceptional food emergencies, with an
estimated 67 million people requiring emergency food aid.
Conflict is one of the most common causes of food insecurity. War and
civil strife were the major causes in 15 countries that suffered
exceptional food emergencies in 2001 and early 2002.
Conflict in sub-Saharan Africa resulted in losses of almost US$52
billion in agricultural output between 1970 and 1997, a figure
equivalent to 75 percent of all official development assistance received
by the conflict-affected countries. Estimated losses in agricultural
output for all developing countries averaged US$4.3 billion per year,
enough to have raised the food intake of 330 million hungry people to
minimum required levels.
The report emphasized that secure access to land is one of the key
factors for food security. It noted that severe poverty and hunger are
concentrated among the landless or farmers whose plots are too small to
provide for their needs. More than 30 percent of the rural poor in Latin
America and the Caribbean are landless. Improving access to land can
have a major impact on reducing poverty and hunger. Developing countries
where land was more equally distributed have made more rapid progress in
reducing the prevalence of hunger.
Growth of the agricultural sector is essential to reducing hunger and
poverty. Countries where hunger and poverty are widespread invest
significantly less in their agriculture than those with less hunger,
according to the report. Actual public expenditures for agriculture and
rural development in the developing world do not reflect the importance
of the sector to their national economies. Official development
assistance to agriculture declined by an alarming 48 percent between
1990 and 1999.
According to the Anti-Hunger Programme proposed by FAO, additional
public investment of US$24 billion annually would be needed to
accelerate progress in reducing hunger and reach the target of the World
Food Summit, FAO said. The investments should be focused on poor
countries with large numbers of undernourished people. The global
benefits of reducing the number of hungry by half would be at least
US$120 billion per year as a result of longer, healthier and more
productive lives for several hundred million people. FAO has proposed
that the financing of the investment be divided on average equally
between industrialized and developing countries.
(*) The figures reflect more recent and revised past data so they may
not be comparable to previous FAO estimates. FAO regularly updates its
earlier figures on undernourishment as corrected data are provided by
member countries. The estimate for 1998-2000 should therefore not be
compared with the estimate for 1997-99 (777 million hungry people in
developing countries) published in the 2001 edition of this report.
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