Hunger and malnutrition kill more than 5 million children a year and cost developing countries billions of dollars in lost productivity and national income, according to a United Nations report.
“The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2004,” issued Dec. 8 by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), estimated the number of hungry people in the world at 852 million in 2000-2002, up by 18 million from the mid-1990s.
The total includes 815 million people in developing countries, 28 million in countries in transition from communism and 9 million in industrialized countries, the FAO said.
Unless the international community changes its priorities, the world will not meet the target set by the World Food Summit in 1996 of halving the number of the hungry by 2015, the annual report said.
Contending that investing in the fight against hunger makes economic sense, the report estimated that the direct costs of dealing with damage caused by hunger are roughly $30 billion a year.
“Under-nourishment and deficiencies in essential vitamins and minerals cost more than 5 million children their lives every year,” it said.
The report urged a “twin-track approach” to fighting hunger-helping the poor to increase their ability to produce food and/or earn income to buy it while giving immediate aid to the most needy families. It recommended large-scale national programs to promote agriculture and rural development.
Religion News Service