More than 800 million people - or one in every nine on the planet - suffer from hunger, but a new joint UN agency report released today stated that the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of undernourished people by 2015 is still within reach.
The State of Food Insecurity in the World report released in Rome by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP), confirmed a positive trend, which has seen the number of hungry people decline globally by more than 100 million over the last decade and by more than 200 million since 1990-92.
"China alone has reduced the number of undernourished people by 138 million in this period, while the 10 countries that have achieved greatest success in reducing the total number of hungry people in proportion to their national population are: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Cuba, Georgia, Ghana, Kuwait, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Thailand and Venezuela," FAO said in a press release.
The overall trend in hunger reduction in developing countries means that one of the key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halving the proportion of undernourished people by 2015 is within reach, "if appropriate and immediate efforts are stepped up," the report said.
To date, 63 developing countries have reached the MDG target, and six more are on track to reach it by 2015, it said.