World hunger falls but bigger push needed to meet global goals, UN says
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http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/datablog/2013/oct/01/world-hunger-global-goals-un Version 0 of 1. The number of people who are chronically undernourished has fallen from an estimated 868 million in 2010-12 to 842 million in 2011-13, according to a UN report that celebrates progress made, but warns that "considerable and immediate additional efforts" will be needed to meet global goals to reduce hunger by 2015. The 2013 state of food insecurity in the world report, published on Tuesday, says developing countries have collectively made significant progress towards the millennium development goal (MDG) target to halve the prevalence of undernourishment between 1990 and 2015. According to revised estimates, in 1990-92 roughly 23.6% of people in developing countries were undernourished, implying an MDG target of 11.8% for 2015. If current rates of progress continue, the report says, the prevalence of undernourishment in the developing world will approach 13% by 2015 – close to, but still above, the MDG target. Progress towards the "more ambitious" goal set by the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS) has been much more modest, the report notes. The WFS target aims to halve the number – rather than the proportion – of hungry people, and also has a deadline of 2015. To meet this target, the number of hungry people in developing countries would have to fall to 498 million by 2015. This is simply "out of reach at the global level", the report says, though several individual countries may meet the target and more than 20 did so by 2012. According to the figures, Africa has the highest rates of hunger, with almost one in four people (24.8%) thought to be undernourished. The most rapid progress towards the MDG target has been recorded in south-east Asia, where the prevalence of undernourishment has fallen from 31.1% in 1990-92 to an estimated 10.7% today. Overall, the vast majority of hungry people live in developing countries (827 million), where an estimated 14.3% are thought to be undernourished. Many countries who are not on track to meet international goals on hunger face "severe constraints", the report says, noting the particular challenges of countries that have experienced conflict in recent years, or that have poor infrastructure and weak political institutions. The report says, however, that the MDG target can be met if developing countries make significant extra efforts to address immediate needs and sustain longer-term progress. "With a final push in the next couple of years, we can still reach it," the heads of the three Rome-based UN food agencies wrote in a foreword. The report, which precedes the Committee on World Food Security's meetings in Rome this month, says governments should consider increasing support for social protection programmes, including cash-transfer and voucher schemes. "As the target year is fast approaching, there is a need for programmes that deliver quick results. Measures to improve access to food through safety nets and similar interventions can do this," it says. The report also notes the role that remittances from migrants abroad can play in boosting food security. Remittances, which are globally estimated to be worth more than three times foreign aid from rich countries, have in some countries not only helped to cut poverty levels, but also to reduce hunger and improve diets, it says. The UN has for decades tracked global hunger levels by estimating the number of people unable to access sufficient calories for an active life. Its measure has been criticised in recent years for failing to capture the impact of acute shocks and food price crises. The report acknowledges the limitations of the current approach and presents a suite of additional indicators – including measures of physical infrastructure such as roads and railways – to complement the main prevalence of undernourishment estimates. A broader set of measures is needed to reflect the "multidimensional nature of food insecurity", says the report, which points out, as an example, that in some countries, though the prevalence of hunger may be low, undernutrition rates, or the proportion of underweight children, is high. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, meanwhile, is working on a new measure of self-reported food security, based on annual data collected globally through the Gallup World Poll. Download the data • The full suite of UN food security indicators, including rates and numbers of undernourished people More data • More data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian Development and aid data • More global development data Can you do something with this data? • Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group • Contact us at development@theguardian.com • Follow the Guardian Global development team on Twitter Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |