Possibility
of reducing global hunger in half by 2015 looks dim
By: Amanda Newman
October 25, 2002
We are no closer to solving world hunger.
According the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's, FAO, annual report titled "The State of Food in the World 2002", "progress in reducing world hunger has virtually come to a halt."
There is a global epidemic among us. There were 840 million undernourished people between 1998 and 2000 and 799 million of those live in developing countries. 6 million children under five years old died as a result of intense levels of hunger, poverty and malnutrition.
Chronic hunger, the hidden famine, cripples underdeveloped and impoverished countries. Worse yet, optimism is no longer an option.
Food insecurity is such a global concern even the FAO has doubts the goal set during the 1996 World Food Summit to reduce the number of hungry in half by 2015 can be achieved. The report claims unless something changes, and quickly, the world will not reach the goal.
"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," said FAO Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf .
In the report.Diouf says 25,000 people will die every day from hunger, which means by the time you read this article 17 people will have died.The problem extends beyond third world economics. Political issues, floods and droughts, armed conflicts and social disruptions accompany the economic shortage that characterizes underdeveloped countries.There are many, many civilian and corporate efforts worldwide to aid in the fight against food insecurity. UNICEF and the FAO are examples of the ongoing battle to eradicate hunger.
The FAO says that $24 billion would be needed annually to reach the goal of reducing the number of hungry in half by 2015.
In a world that produces enough food to feed every single person that walks this earth, 840 million go to bed hungry night after night. Something needs to be done, something needs to change, and it has to be now. The only question left to answer is what that something is.