This is Robert Cohen with the VOA Special English DevelopmentReport.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says worldhunger has increased. The agency released its newest estimates in areport called “The State of Food Insecurity in the WorldTwo-thousand-three.”
Researchers say world hunger had dropped by thirty-seven millionpeople during the early part of the nineteen-nineties. In the secondhalf of the decade, however, the number grew by eighteen-million.
Today, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that morethan eight-hundred-forty-million people do not get enough to eat.That is one in seven people in the world. Most live in developingnations.
Hartwig de Haen helped write theF-A-O report. He says a lot of progress has been made to reducehunger. In nineteen-seventy, almost forty percent of the worldpopulation was underfed. By two-thousand, the percentage was down toless than half that.
However, Mister De Haen says it is too early to tell if therecent increase represents a major change. He says the increase maybe temporary, caused by a series of crises and conflicts. Forexample, the F-A-O says seventy-five percent of Congolese wereunderfed as of a few years ago, because of war.
The U-N report shows how nations with higher economic andagricultural growth have had more success reducing hunger. It saysBrazil, for example, has cut the number of hungry people throughprograms to increase employment and food production. The Braziliangovernment also offers free or low-cost meals at schools andworkplaces.
But the U-N report also shows how world hunger has been worsenedby the AIDS crisis. In southern Africa, wage earners in manyfamilies have become infected with the AIDS virus and have had toleave their fields. The F-A-O says it expects AIDS to claimone-fifth or more of agricultural workers in most southern Africannations by two-thousand-twenty.
The recent increase in world hunger is bad news for efforts toreduce the number of hungry people in the world by half bytwo-thousand-fifteen. World leaders set this goal innineteen-ninety-six at the World Food Summit in Rome. The UnitedNations also approved it as a Millennium Development Goal inSeptember of two-thousand.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written by JillMoss. This is Robert Cohen.