World reducing hunger too slowly, UN says

David Brough, Reuters, Stockholm

The world is slipping further behind target in its effort to halve hunger by 2015, the United Nations food body said on Monday.

The Food and Agriculture Organization urged countries to rally political will and resources to reduce hunger and poverty.

"Progress has been made in reducing the absolute number of hungry people in the world, but this is not happening fast enough to achieve the 1996 World Food Summit target -- that of halving the number of hungry people by 2015," FAO said.

According to a new FAO report entitled "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2001", the number of hungry is falling by just six million a year, less than the eight million a year previously reported by the Rome-based body in a 1999 report.

"Over the past decade, the total number of chronically undernourished in the developing world has fallen by approximately 40 million but the average rate of decline has continued to slow," the report, released in Stockholm, said.

"The annual reduction required to reach the target by 2015 has grown from 20 to 22 million people per year," it added. "Hence the gap -- between reductions realized and reductions needed -- is widening."

FAO's latest estimates indicate that in 1997-99 there were 815 million undernourished people in the world, including 777 million in developing countries, 27 million in countries changing into market economies and 11 million in industrialized countries.

FAO Assistant Director-General Hartwig de Haen said the organization was particularly concerned that undernutrition among children could worsen due to various factors, including poor economic prospects and HIV/AIDS.

He told Reuters that progress in reducing hunger was reported in the world's most populous nation, China, which cut the number of its undernourished by 76 million between 1990-92 and 1997-99 due to its strong economic and agricultural growth.

Despite China's good performance, the country is still home to the world's second largest number of undernourished people after India.

The number of hungry actually increased in several countries between 1990-92 and 1997-99, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Tanzania, North Korea, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Depending on the country, factors such as war, surging population growth and drought were to blame.