ROME: Ten years after global leaders first pledged to halve the number of the world's hungry, almost no progress has been made.

Some 854 million people worldwide still suffering from undernourishment, said a U.N. report released on Monday. However, it says that regions such as Asia and Latin America have seen an overall reduction.

Population giants China, India, Indonesia and Brazil have shown a decline in the number and percentage of undernourished people.

Developing world

In the developing world, the undernourished population in 2001-03 had declined by just three million from the 823 million estimated in 1990-92 — a reduction that is within the boundaries of statistical error, according to a report by the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Some 854 million people were undernourished in the world during the years 2001 through 2003. The bulk of them — 820 million — were in developing countries, while 25 million were in transitional countries and nine million were in industrialised countries.

The meagre result contrasts starkly with previous achievements in the 1970s and 1980s, when the number of hungry in poor countries dropped by 137 million, the report said.

The latest estimates, dating back to the 2001-03 period, show that after further dipping by 26 million during the 1990s, the developing world's hungry rose again by 23 million at the beginning of the new century, further worsening the situation in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, where a third of the total population is undernourished.

The race against hunger

The report by the U.N. food agency casts a shadow on the goal of reducing the number of the world's hungry by half by the year 2015, set by the World Food Summit in 1996 and reaffirmed by the Millennium Development Goals in 2000.

"We are confident that the race against hunger can still be won, but only if the necessary resources, political will and correct policies are forthcoming," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf wrote in the report's foreword.

The report stressed that the outlook is not all bleak. Despite the virtually stagnating figures on global hunger, population increases mean the percentage of those suffering from malnutrition in the developing world has dropped from 20 per cent to 17 per cent since 1990-92.

Even sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of malnourished people grew to 206.2 million people in 2001-03 from 169 million 11 years earlier, has seen a proportional reduction, cutting hunger from 35 per cent to 32 per cent of the population.

That decline came mostly in countries of East, West and Southern Africa, while the centre of the continent, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo, suffered an overall increase, with the malnourished population jumping from 36 per cent to 56 per cent.

Even in Asia and Latin America, in many countries the reduction rate has fallen short of what would be required to reach the 2015 goal, while other nations have suffered setbacks. For Asia, "the most serious deterioration in food security'' was recorded in North Korea, where the hungry population more than doubled from 3.6 million in 1990-92 to 7.9 million in 2001-03.

A "significant increase in hunger" in the same period was also recorded in Venezuela, where the undernourished population went from 11 per cent to 18 per cent.

Twin-track approach

Ending wars and aiding economic growth are key to ending hunger, along with specific measures that ensure access to food and promote rural development, the report said.

"A twin-track approach, emphasising direct action against hunger along with a focus on agricultural and rural development, is effective in providing the most vulnerable and food-insecure people with new livelihood possibilities and hope for a better life," Mr. Diouf wrote in the report. — AP

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