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 The Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of the world's hungry by 2015 has suffered "a serious setback" according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, as the global food crisis caused the number of people living in hunger to rise to almost one billion. The FAO warned that financial and economic crisis could tip even more people into hunger and poverty, due to its likely impact on remittance flows, foreign direct investment and food aid to poor countries.
The organisation's report, "The State of Food Insecurity in the World", estimates that the number of undernourished people rose this year by 40m to 963m people, after rising by 75m last year. "High food prices are driving millions of people into food insecurity, worsening conditions for many who were already food insecure, and threatening long-term global food security," the report said. "Soaring food prices have reversed some of the gain and successes in hunger reduction, making the mission of achieving the internationally agreed goal on hunger reduction more difficult". FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said yesterday that the target could still be met but acknowledged that there was little sign countries were investing the €23bn a year required to cut hunger and boost agriculture sufficiently to meet the target. Sources: |
