May 28 2015 : The Times of India (Delhi)
About 200m fewer hungry people than in 1990: UN
Rick Gladstone
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NYT NEWS SERVIC
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The number of hungry people globally has de clined from about one billion 25 years ago to about 795 million today, or about one person out of every nine, despite a surge in population growth, the United Nations reported on Wednesday .In developing regions, the number of hungry people has fallen to 780 million today , or 12.9% of the population, from 991 million 25 years ago, or 23.3% of the population at the time, according to the United Nations' annual hunger report, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Program.
Despite the finding that nearly 800 million people in the world remain hungry , the report described the progress made as a significant achievement. It said that 72 of the 129 nations monitored by the Food and Agriculture Organization had achieved the target under the so-called Millennium Development Goals of halving the percentages of hungry people in their populations and that developing regions had missed the target by only a small margin.
The Millennium Development Goals are a set of eight international objectives, including hunger eradication, established by the UN in 2000.“The near-achievement of the MDG hunger targets shows us that we can indeed eliminate the scourge of hunger in our lifetime,“ said José Graziano da Silva, the director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, in announcing the report, “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015.“ The report attributed the hunger reduction in part to stable political conditions and economic growth in many of the countries that had met the target.
Progress was most pronounced in East Asia, Southeast and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.But the report also illustrated failures, especially in parts of Africa, where in some regions more than one in three people remain hungry .
Despite the finding that nearly 800 million people in the world remain hungry , the report described the progress made as a significant achievement. It said that 72 of the 129 nations monitored by the Food and Agriculture Organization had achieved the target under the so-called Millennium Development Goals of halving the percentages of hungry people in their populations and that developing regions had missed the target by only a small margin.
The Millennium Development Goals are a set of eight international objectives, including hunger eradication, established by the UN in 2000.“The near-achievement of the MDG hunger targets shows us that we can indeed eliminate the scourge of hunger in our lifetime,“ said José Graziano da Silva, the director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, in announcing the report, “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015.“ The report attributed the hunger reduction in part to stable political conditions and economic growth in many of the countries that had met the target.
Progress was most pronounced in East Asia, Southeast and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.But the report also illustrated failures, especially in parts of Africa, where in some regions more than one in three people remain hungry .
