Number of hungry in developing countries increased in late 1990s_11204

Posted: 1/09/04

Number of hungry in developing
countries increased in late 1990s

ROME (RNS)–The number of hungry people in developing countries rose during the second half of the 1990s, despite a concerted campaign against hunger in the world, the United Nations reports.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in its report on “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2003” that the total number of the hungry in the developing world dropped by 37 million in the first half of the 1990s, then rose by 18 million in the second half of the decade.

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The latest estimates “signal a setback in the war against hunger,” the report said. Nations represented at the World Food Summit in 1996 pledged to reduce the number of undernourished people worldwide by half by 2015.

“The goal can only be reached if the recent trend of increasing numbers is reversed. The annual reductions must be accelerated to 26 million per year, more than 12 times the pace of …the 1990s,” said Hartwig de Haen, head of the Food and Agriculture Organization's economic and social department.

By U.N. estimates, 842 million people were undernourished from 1999 to 2001, the most recent years for which figures are available.

The hungry included 10 million in industrialized countries, 34 million in countries in transition and 798 million in developing countries.

Contributing factors to increased hunger include low economic, social and agricultural growth; high population growth; frequent food emergencies; conflict; and AIDS.

The U.N. report said Latin America was the only region in which the number of hungry has dropped since the mid-1990s, and only 19 countries, including China, succeeded in reducing the number of undernourished throughout the decade.

Conflict increased hunger in Central and West Africa, the report noted.