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Number of hungry people "intolerable"

1.02 billion hungry people in 2009 - FAO hunger report published

The sharp spike in hunger triggered by the global economic crisis has hit the poorest people in developing countries hardest, revealing a fragile world food system in urgent need of reform, according to a report released today by FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP).

The combination of food and economic crises has pushed the number of hungry people worldwide to historic levels — more than one billion people are undernourished, according to FAO estimates.

Source: Nazret.com

35 million Ethiopians or about 44% of the total population are undernourished according to a report released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organaization (FAO). The report which refers the data from 2004 to 2006, shows a progress for Ethiopia in reducing the percentage of malnourished people from 71% in 1990-92 to 44% in 2004-06. The country still has one of the largest proportion of malnourished people in the world, but the report shows a marked decrease in the percentage of malnutrition prevalence. This compares to 30% malnutrition prevalence in Kenya and 66% in Eritrea, which has the second highest malnutrition percentage in the world after Congo (D.R). The DRC was the worst affected, followed by Burundi, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Chad and Ethiopia.