Economic crises cause spike in world hunger: UN
2009-10-14

Category Famine Nations Congo Eritrea Chad Sierra Leone Burundi Ethiopia Category Regions Regions Africa Latin America Event Global Financial Crisis Source (AFP)

ROME (AFP) - The food crisis in poor countries coupled with the global economic crisis have caused a spike in world hunger, with more than one billion people undernourished this year, the UN food agencies said Wednesday.

"No nation is immune and, as usual, it is the poorest countries -- and the poorest people -- that are suffering the most," said FAO head Jacques Diouf and WFP chief Josette Sheeran in this year's annual report on global food security being released in advance of World Food Day on October 16.

"Even before the food crisis and the economic crisis, the number of hungry people had been increasing slowly but steadily," says the report compiled jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Programme.

"With the onset of these crises, however, the number of hungry people in the world increased sharply," said the Rome-based agencies.

The financial crisis has led to declines in foreign aid and investment in poor countries as well as remittances from relatives working in wealthy countries.

"This loss of income is compounded by food prices that are still relatively high in the local markets of many poor countries," the FAO said.

"FAO estimates that 1.02 billion people are undernourished worldwide in 2009," the report detailed. "This represents more hungry people than at any time since 1970 and a worsening of the unsatisfactory trends that were present even before the economic crisis."

The number of hungry has topped the one billion mark for the first time since 1970, but is a smaller proportion of the world total, which is now nearing seven billion compared with less than four billion four decades ago.

The largest population of the under-nourished is in the Asia-Pacific region, with 642 million, followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (265 million), Latin America (53 million) and the Middle East and North Africa (42 million). Some 15 million people suffer from hunger in the developed world.

In the Global Hunger Index report released Wednesday by the International Food Policy Research Institute, the Democratic Republic of Congo scored the worst, followed by Burundi, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Chad and Ethiopia.

However, the GHI report said the data used to compile the index was two years old and did not fully factor in recent developments including the financial crisis.

The financial crisis has led to declines in foreign aid and investment in poor countries as well as remittances from relatives working in wealthy countries, the report noted. Since 2007, high food prices have sparked riots in more than 60 countries.

One of the Millennium Development Goals outlined in 2000 was to halve the number of people suffering from hunger -- then put at 800 million -- by 2015.

The UN report warned this would not be achieved if the trends that prevailed before the crises continue.

World Food Day on Friday caps a week of talks among some 300 experts focussing on feeding the world in 2050, when the UN forecasts a global population of 9.1 billion.

FAO Director General Diouf is to present a "toolbox" for helping countries fight hunger on Thursday.

On Friday, five new goodwill ambassadors will be named: US Olympic gold medallist Carl Lewis, French fashion designer Pierre Cardin, French football star Patrick Vieira and singer-songwriters Anggun and Fanny Lu of France and Columbia respectively.

The FAO is to host a World Summit for Food Security November 16-18 in Rome, with Pope Benedict XVI attending the opening session.

1. Link to the report "The State of Food insecurity in the World"