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World losing hunger fight it could easily win: FAO report

ROME: Hunger and malnutrition are killing more than five million children a year and costing developing countries billions of dollars in lost productivity, according to the UN food agency’s annual hunger report published on Wednesday.

The report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said it was ‘regrettable’ that so little was being done to fight hunger even though the resources needed to deal with the problem were ‘miniscule’ compared to the potential benefits.

“A very rough estimate suggest that these direct costs add up to around $30 billion per year, over five times the amount committed so far to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria,” it said. “Every dollar invested in reducing hunger according to our estimates yields a return from five to 20 times in terms of benefits,” FAO Assistant Director General Hartwig de Haen told reporters.

“It is incomprehensible and difficult to understand why this investment is not made,” he said.

The Rome-based agency bemoaned the fact that efforts to reduce chronic hunger in developing countries “are not on currently on track” though it insists that the goal of cutting by half the number of the world’s hungry by 2015 can still be maintained.

Calling the extent of human suffering brought about by hunger “a scandal”, De Haen said, “We cannot afford to be passive.” FAO says some 852 million people suffer from malnutrition between 2000-2002, 815 million in developing countries, 28 million in transition countries and a shocking nine million in so-called first world countries.

“It is possible that the international community has not fully grasped the economic bounce they would get from investments in hunger reduction. It is a matter of political will and prioritisation,” said De Haen. The report, “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2004”, identifies “hunger hotspots” around the globe, where 35 countries faced food emergencies in 2004 — worst hit being Eritrea, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Zambia, Haiti and North Korea..

“Most of the crises were concentrated in Africa and were caused by drought, conflict or a combination of the two,” it said.

In the countries of east Africa alone, more than 13 million people have been threatened by a combination of drought, and civil conflicts, including in the Darfur region of Sudan where more than a million people have been displaced.

The report pointed out that east Africa includes six countries that have been in crisis for a prolonged period: “more than half the time since 1996”. The report recommends that countries adopt “large scale programmes to promote primarily agriculture and rural development on which the majority of the poor and hungry depend for their livelihoods”. afp

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