The Big Picture

"In purely quantitative terms, there is enough food available to feed the entire global population of 6.7 billion people. And yet, one in nearly seven people is going hungry." (The Word Food Programme, 2010)

THE HUNGRY

Despite the impression you often get from the media, emergencies account for less than 8% of hunger's victims. Few people realise that there are over 1 billion hungry people in the world who don't make the headlines -- more than the combined populations of the United States, Canada and the European Union. Around the world the most vulnerable to hunger are: children, pregnant and nursing women, single mothers, the elderly, the homeless, the unemployed, ethnic and racial minorities, and the working poor.http://www.kidscanmakeadifference.org/hunger_facts.htm (The Word Food Programme, 2010)

The percentage of hungry people is highest in east, central and southern Africa. Around 3/4 of undernourished people live in low-income rural areas of developing countries, principally in higher-risk farming areas. However, the share of the hungry in urban areas is rising. Of the total number of over 1 billion chronically hungry people, over 1/2 are in Asia and the Pacific and about a 1/4 are in Sub-Saharan Africa. (The Word Food Programme, 2010)

Is the Hunger Problem Getting Any Better?

Whereas good progress was made in reducing chronic hunger in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, hunger has been slowly but steadily on the rise for the past decade. The number of hungry people increased between 1995-97 and 2004-06 in all regions except Latin America and the Caribbean. But even in this region, gains in hunger reduction have been reversed as a result of high food prices and the current global economic downturn. Today, one in six people do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life, making hunger and malnutrition the number one risk to health worldwide -- greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. (FAO, 2010)