The number of hungry people worldwide has swelled in recent years, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, because of war, drought, AIDS and trade barriers, according to a report released on Tuesday by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The report, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2003, found that after falling steadily during the first half of the 1990s, hunger grew in the second half.
Between 1999 and 2001, the report found, more than 840 million people, or one in seven, went hungry. Most alarming of all, between 1995 and 2001, the number of malnourished people across the developing world grew by an average of 4.5 million a year.
The agency said the findings would make it impossible to meet its goal of halving world hunger by 2015. That goal, set first in 1996, was cited as a top priority by the UN Millennium Summit meeting in September 2000.
The rise in hunger came even though the world produced ample food, and in 22 countries, including Bangladesh, Haiti and Mozambique, the number of undernourished declined in the second half of the decade.
"Bluntly stated, the problem is not so much a lack of food as a lack of political will," the report declared.
The FAO called on rich countries to invest in improving agricultural productivity, conserving natural resources and expanding access to global markets for farmers in the developing world.
Citizens of countries that spend significant portions of their limited export earnings to import food are most likely to go hungry, the report concluded.
By contrast, countries that succeeded in reducing hunger were those where agricultural production rose, population growth slowed and HIV rates were relatively low.
Anti-poverty advocates said the report underscored the need to tackle underlying causes of hunger.
"We tend to think of the solution as, `Well, they need seeds and tools,'" said Adrienne Smith, a spokeswoman for the Boston-based Oxfam America.
"Unfortunately, there are structural issues that conspire to keep people from thriving," she said.
Throughout the 1990s, the report found, only 19 countries, including China, reduced hunger among their peoples. In another 17 countries, where hunger had begun falling in the early 1990s, the number of malnourished people climbed in the latter half of the decade. This group included densely populated nations like India and Nigeria.
"Unless significant gains are made in large countries where progress has stalled, it will be difficult to reverse this negative trend," the report said.
Not surprisingly, the figures from countries at war, like Liberia and Congo, were the most startling. Agricultural production has come to a standstill in those countries, a great many of them in western and central Africa. The vast and fertile Congo topped the chart, with 75 percent of its population estimated to be undernourished in the 1999-2001 period. In Afghanistan and Burundi, 70 percent of people were undernourished.
In southern Africa, the AIDS pandemic has cut a swath through what otherwise would be its most productive citizens. The disease has robbed families of breadwinners and forced some families to abandon their fields.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia