World hunger on the rise as 820m at risk, UN report finds

More than 820 million people worldwide are still going hungry, according to a UN report that says reaching the target of zero hunger by 2030 is “an immense challenge”.

 

More than 820 million people worldwide are still going hungry, according to a UN report that says reaching the target of zero hunger by 2030 is “an immense challenge”.

The number of people with not enough to eat has risen for the third year in a row as the population increases, after a decade when real progress was made. The underlying trend is stabilization, when global agencies had hoped it would fall.

Millions of children are not getting the nutrition they need. The UN says the pace of progress in halving child stunting and reducing the number of low birth weight babies is too slow, which jeopardizes the chances of achieving another of the sustainable development goals.

Nearly half of all child deaths in Africa stem from hunger, study shows.

The report is from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef), the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization.

“Our actions to tackle these troubling trends will have to be bolder,” the UN leaders say. “We must foster pro-poor and inclusive structural transformation focusing on people and placing communities at the centre to reduce economic vulnerabilities and set ourselves on track to ending hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition.”

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