Food Insecurity Continues, With Some Gains

July 24, 2000

The United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization says gains in meeting the needs of the world’s undernourished people are encouraging "but far from satisfactory." The number of undernourished declined by 40 million between 1990-92 and 1995-97, but the momentum "Is too slow and the progress too uneven to achieve the goal set by the World Food Summit in 1996."

That goal was to reduce the total undernourished from almost 800 million to 400 million by 2015. However, "in fact, the number of hungry people is growing in many parts of the world," says the FAO report. Almost two-thirds of the undernourished in the world live in Asia and the Pacific. India by itself has more undernourished (204 million) than all of sub-Saharan Africa combined, says the report.

With India’s neighbors added, the South Asian sub-region accounts for more than one-third of the hungry people in the developing world; another 30% are in Southeast and East Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa has almost a quarter of the developing world’s hungry, and it is the region making the least progress. Twenty-eight countries lost ground during 1980-96 while only 10 made progress.

Serious hunger afflicts fewer people in Latin America and the Caribbean, the report continues. Most of the countries in this region are in the moderately low category, meaning 5-19% are undernourished. Yet progress towards a sufficient diet for all has stalled in this region with 16 countries losing ground compared to eight making progress.

The countries in the Near East are concentrated in the extremely low and very low hunger categories with malnourishment afflicting fewer than 5% of the people. This region also made the most progress in the 1980-96 period with 12 countries making progress and four losing ground. Yet in Yemen and Afghanistan, 35% or more of the population is undernourished.

"Action is needed most urgently in countries where chronic food insecurity is most prevalent or is increasing," the report said. "We have the tools to achieve the World Food Summit target...The next step is translating the goal into concrete objectives at the local, national and regional levels where people and their leaders can take action."

The entire report is available on the Internet at http://www.fao.org/NEWS/1999/img/SOFISU-E.pdf