Global Hunger
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There are 1.02 billion undernourished people in the world today. That means one in nearly six people do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life. Hunger and malnutrition are in fact the number one risk to the health worldwide — greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
Among the key causes of hunger are natural disasters, conflict, poverty, poor agricultural infrastructure and over-exploitation of the environment. Recently, financial and economic crises have pushed more people into hunger.
As well as the obvious sort of hunger resulting from an empty stomach, there is also the hidden hunger of micronutrient deficiencies which make people susceptible to infectious diseases, impair physical and mental development, reduce their labour productivity and increase the risk of premature death.
Hunger does not only weigh on the individual. It also imposes a crushing economic burden on the developing world. Economists estimate that every child whose physical and mental development is stunted by hunger and malnutrition stands to lose 5-10 percent in lifetime earnings.
The Hope Movement fights world hunger through our Project Nourishment Initiative, City of Hope, and Haven of Hope Centers. You can make a difference by becoming an Angel and adopting-a-program to give food to the hungry.
What is hunger?
Acute hunger or starvation are often highlighted on TV screens: hungry mothers too weak to breastfeed their children in drought-hit Ethiopia, refugees in war-torn Darfur queueing for food rations, helicopters airlifting high energy biscuits to earthquake victims in Pakistan or Indonesia.
These situations are the result of high profile crises like war or natural disasters, which starve a population of food, yet emergencies account for less than eight percent of hunger's victims.
Daily undernourishment is a less visible form of hunger -- but it affects many more people, from the shanty towns of Jakarta in Indonesia and the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh to the mountain villages of Bolivia and Nepal. In these places, hunger is much more than an empty stomach.
2,100 calories a day
For weeks, even months, its victims must live on significantly less than the recommended 2,100 calories that the average person needs to lead a healthy life.
The body compensates for the lack of energy by slowing down its physical and mental activities. A hungry mind cannot concentrate, a hungry body does not take initiative, a hungry child loses all desire to play and study.
Hunger also weakens the immune system. Deprived of the right nutrition, hungry children are especially vulnerable and become too weak to fight off disease and may die from common infections like measles and diarrhoea. Each year, almost 11 million children die before reaching the age of five; malnutrition is associated with 53 percent of these deaths (source: Caulfield et al., The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2004 July)
Number 1 risk to health
In the final quarter of the 20th century, humanity was winning the war on its oldest enemy. From 1970-1997, the number of hungry people dropped from 959 million to 791 million -- mainly the result of dramatic progress in reducing the number of undernourished in China and India.
In the second half of the 1990s, however, the number of chronically hungry in developing countries started to increase at a rate of almost four million per year. By 2001-2003, the total number of undernourished people worldwide had risen to 854 million and the latest figure is 1.02 billion.
Today, almost one person in six does not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life, making hunger and malnutrition the number one risk to health worldwide -- greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
Who are the hungry?
Most of the world’s hungry live in developing countries. According to the latest Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistics, there are more than 1 billion hungry people in the world and 915 million of them are in developing countries.
Among the key causes of hunger are natural disasters, conflict, poverty, poor agricultural infrastructure and over-exploitation of the environment. Recently, financial and economic crises have pushed more people into hunger.
As well as the obvious sort of hunger resulting from an empty stomach, there is also the hidden hunger of micronutrient deficiencies which make people susceptible to infectious diseases, impair physical and mental development, reduce their labour productivity and increase the risk of premature death.
Hunger does not only weigh on the individual. It also imposes a crushing economic burden on the developing world. Economists estimate that every child whose physical and mental development is stunted by hunger and malnutrition stands to lose 5-10 percent in lifetime earnings.
The Hope Movement fights world hunger through our Project Nourishment Initiative, City of Hope, and Haven of Hope Centers. You can make a difference by becoming an Angel and adopting-a-program to give food to the hungry.
What is hunger?
Acute hunger or starvation are often highlighted on TV screens: hungry mothers too weak to breastfeed their children in drought-hit Ethiopia, refugees in war-torn Darfur queueing for food rations, helicopters airlifting high energy biscuits to earthquake victims in Pakistan or Indonesia.
These situations are the result of high profile crises like war or natural disasters, which starve a population of food, yet emergencies account for less than eight percent of hunger's victims.
Daily undernourishment is a less visible form of hunger -- but it affects many more people, from the shanty towns of Jakarta in Indonesia and the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh to the mountain villages of Bolivia and Nepal. In these places, hunger is much more than an empty stomach.
2,100 calories a day
For weeks, even months, its victims must live on significantly less than the recommended 2,100 calories that the average person needs to lead a healthy life.
The body compensates for the lack of energy by slowing down its physical and mental activities. A hungry mind cannot concentrate, a hungry body does not take initiative, a hungry child loses all desire to play and study.
Hunger also weakens the immune system. Deprived of the right nutrition, hungry children are especially vulnerable and become too weak to fight off disease and may die from common infections like measles and diarrhoea. Each year, almost 11 million children die before reaching the age of five; malnutrition is associated with 53 percent of these deaths (source: Caulfield et al., The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2004 July)
Number 1 risk to health
In the final quarter of the 20th century, humanity was winning the war on its oldest enemy. From 1970-1997, the number of hungry people dropped from 959 million to 791 million -- mainly the result of dramatic progress in reducing the number of undernourished in China and India.
In the second half of the 1990s, however, the number of chronically hungry in developing countries started to increase at a rate of almost four million per year. By 2001-2003, the total number of undernourished people worldwide had risen to 854 million and the latest figure is 1.02 billion.
Today, almost one person in six does not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life, making hunger and malnutrition the number one risk to health worldwide -- greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
Who are the hungry?
Most of the world’s hungry live in developing countries. According to the latest Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistics, there are more than 1 billion hungry people in the world and 915 million of them are in developing countries.
- 642 million in Asia and the Pacific
- 265 million in Sub-Saharan Africa
- 53 million in Latin America and the Caribbean
- 42 million in the Near East and North Africa
Rural risk
Three-quarters of all hungry people live in rural areas, mainly in the villages of Asia and Africa. Overwhelmingly dependent on agriculture for their food, these populations have no alternative source of income or employment. As a result, they are vulnerable to crises. Many migrate to cities in their search for employment, swelling the ever-expanding populations of shanty towns in developing countries.
Farmers
75 percent of the hungry people in developing countries, half are farming families, surviving off marginal lands prone to natural disasters like drought or flood. One in five belongs to landless families dependent on farming and about 10 percent live in communities whose livelihoods depend on herding, fishing or forest resources.
The remaining 25 percent live in shanty towns on the periphery of the biggest cities in developing countries. The numbers of poor and hungry city dwellers are rising rapidly along with the world's total urban population.
Children
An estimated 146 million children in developing countries are underweight - the result of acute or chronic hunger. This means that 25 percent of all hungry people are children. All too often, child hunger is inherited: up to 17 million children are born underweight annually, the result of inadequate nutrition before and during pregnancy.
Women
Women are the world's primary food producers, yet cultural traditions and social structures often mean women are much more affected by hunger and poverty than men. A mother who is stunted or underweight due to an inadequate diet often give birth to low birthweight children.
Around 50 per cent of pregnant women in developing countries are iron deficient. Lack of iron means 315 million women die annually from hemorrhage at childbirth. As a result, women, and in particular expectant and nursing mothers, often need special or increased intake of food.
What causes hunger?
Food has never before existed in such abundance, so why are 1.02 billion people in the world going hungry?
In purely quantitative terms, there is enough food available to feed the entire global population of 6.7 billion people. And yet, one in nearly seven people is going hungry. One in three children is underweight. Why does hunger exist?
Nature
Natural disasters such as floods, tropical storms and long periods of drought are on the increase -- with calamitous consequences for food security in poor, developing countries.
Drought is now the single most common cause of food shortages in the world. In 2006, recurrent drought caused crop failures and heavy livestock losses in parts of Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya.
In many countries, climate change is exacerbating already adverse natural conditions.For example, poor farmers in Ethiopia or Guatemala traditionally deal with rain failure by selling off livestock to cover their losses and pay for food. But successive years of drought, increasingly common in the Horn of Africa and Central America, are exhausting their resources.
War
Since 1992, the proportion of short and long-term food crises that can be attributed to human causes has more than doubled, rising from 15 percent to more than 35 percent. All too often, these emergencies are triggered by conflicts.
From Asia to Africa to Latin America, fighting displaces millions of people from their homes, leading to some of the world's worst hunger emergencies. Since 2004, conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan has uprooted more than a million people, precipitating a major food crisis -- in an area that had generally enjoyed good rains and crops.
In war, food sometimes becomes a weapon. Soldiers will starve opponents into submission by seizing or destroying food and livestock and systematically wrecking local markets. Fields and water wells are often mined or contaminated, forcing farmers to abandon their land.
When conflict threw Central Africa into confusion in the 1990s, the proportion of hungry people rose from 53 percent to 58 percent. By comparision, malnutrition is on the retreat in more peaceful parts of Africa such as Ghana and Malawi.
Poverty Trap
In developing countries, farmers often cannot afford seed to plant the crops that would provide for their families. Craftsmen lack the means to pay for the tools to ply their trade. Others have no land or water or education to lay the foundations for a secure future.
The poverty-stricken do not have enough money to buy or produce enough food for themselves and their families. In turn, they tend to be weaker and cannot produce enough to buy more food.
In short, the poor are hungry and their hunger traps them in poverty.
Agricultural infrastructure
In the long-term, improved agricultural output offers the quickest fix for poverty and hunger.
Many developing countries lack key agricultural infrastructure, such as enough roads, warehouses and irrigation. The results are high transport costs, lack of storage facilities and unreliable water supplies.
All conspire to limit agricultural yields and access to food.
But, although the majority of developing countries depend on agriculture, their governments economic planning often emphasises urban development.
Over-exploitation of Environment
Poor farming practices, deforestation, overcropping and overgrazing are exhausting the Earth's fertility and spreading the roots of hunger.
Increasingly, the world's fertile farmland is under threat from erosion, salination and desertification.
What is Malnutrition?
When a person is not getting enough food or not getting the right sort of food, malnutrition is just around the corner. Disease is often a factor, either as a result or contributing cause. Even if people get enough to eat, they will become malnourished if the food they eat does not provide the proper amounts of micronutrients - vitamins and minerals - to meet daily nutritional requirements.
Malnutrition is the largest single contributor to disease, according to the UN's Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN).
Malnutrition at an early age leads to reduced physical and mental development during childhood. Stunting, for example, affects more than 147 million pre-schoolers in developing countries, according to SCN's World Nutrition Situation 5th report. Iodine deficiency, the same report shows, is the world's greatest single cause of mental retardation and brain damage.
Undernutrition affects school performance and studies have shown it often leads to a lower income as an adult. It also causes women to give birth to low birth-weight babies.
Window of Opportunity
The first two years of life are the “window of opportunity” to prevent early childhood undernutrition that causes largely irreversible damage. The Hope Movement focuses on the earliest phase of life, i.e. from conception (-9 months) to 24 months of age, providing essential nutrients including vitamins and minerals.
Eliminating malnutrition involves sustaining the quality and quantity of food a person eats, as well as adequate health care and a healthy environment. The Hope Movement helps fight malnutrition by treating it -- giving malnourished people the food and nutrients they need -- but also by preventing it.
Hunger Stats
Global Hunger
Three-quarters of all hungry people live in rural areas, mainly in the villages of Asia and Africa. Overwhelmingly dependent on agriculture for their food, these populations have no alternative source of income or employment. As a result, they are vulnerable to crises. Many migrate to cities in their search for employment, swelling the ever-expanding populations of shanty towns in developing countries.
Farmers
75 percent of the hungry people in developing countries, half are farming families, surviving off marginal lands prone to natural disasters like drought or flood. One in five belongs to landless families dependent on farming and about 10 percent live in communities whose livelihoods depend on herding, fishing or forest resources.
The remaining 25 percent live in shanty towns on the periphery of the biggest cities in developing countries. The numbers of poor and hungry city dwellers are rising rapidly along with the world's total urban population.
Children
An estimated 146 million children in developing countries are underweight - the result of acute or chronic hunger. This means that 25 percent of all hungry people are children. All too often, child hunger is inherited: up to 17 million children are born underweight annually, the result of inadequate nutrition before and during pregnancy.
Women
Women are the world's primary food producers, yet cultural traditions and social structures often mean women are much more affected by hunger and poverty than men. A mother who is stunted or underweight due to an inadequate diet often give birth to low birthweight children.
Around 50 per cent of pregnant women in developing countries are iron deficient. Lack of iron means 315 million women die annually from hemorrhage at childbirth. As a result, women, and in particular expectant and nursing mothers, often need special or increased intake of food.
What causes hunger?
Food has never before existed in such abundance, so why are 1.02 billion people in the world going hungry?
In purely quantitative terms, there is enough food available to feed the entire global population of 6.7 billion people. And yet, one in nearly seven people is going hungry. One in three children is underweight. Why does hunger exist?
Nature
Natural disasters such as floods, tropical storms and long periods of drought are on the increase -- with calamitous consequences for food security in poor, developing countries.
Drought is now the single most common cause of food shortages in the world. In 2006, recurrent drought caused crop failures and heavy livestock losses in parts of Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya.
In many countries, climate change is exacerbating already adverse natural conditions.For example, poor farmers in Ethiopia or Guatemala traditionally deal with rain failure by selling off livestock to cover their losses and pay for food. But successive years of drought, increasingly common in the Horn of Africa and Central America, are exhausting their resources.
War
Since 1992, the proportion of short and long-term food crises that can be attributed to human causes has more than doubled, rising from 15 percent to more than 35 percent. All too often, these emergencies are triggered by conflicts.
From Asia to Africa to Latin America, fighting displaces millions of people from their homes, leading to some of the world's worst hunger emergencies. Since 2004, conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan has uprooted more than a million people, precipitating a major food crisis -- in an area that had generally enjoyed good rains and crops.
In war, food sometimes becomes a weapon. Soldiers will starve opponents into submission by seizing or destroying food and livestock and systematically wrecking local markets. Fields and water wells are often mined or contaminated, forcing farmers to abandon their land.
When conflict threw Central Africa into confusion in the 1990s, the proportion of hungry people rose from 53 percent to 58 percent. By comparision, malnutrition is on the retreat in more peaceful parts of Africa such as Ghana and Malawi.
Poverty Trap
In developing countries, farmers often cannot afford seed to plant the crops that would provide for their families. Craftsmen lack the means to pay for the tools to ply their trade. Others have no land or water or education to lay the foundations for a secure future.
The poverty-stricken do not have enough money to buy or produce enough food for themselves and their families. In turn, they tend to be weaker and cannot produce enough to buy more food.
In short, the poor are hungry and their hunger traps them in poverty.
Agricultural infrastructure
In the long-term, improved agricultural output offers the quickest fix for poverty and hunger.
Many developing countries lack key agricultural infrastructure, such as enough roads, warehouses and irrigation. The results are high transport costs, lack of storage facilities and unreliable water supplies.
All conspire to limit agricultural yields and access to food.
But, although the majority of developing countries depend on agriculture, their governments economic planning often emphasises urban development.
Over-exploitation of Environment
Poor farming practices, deforestation, overcropping and overgrazing are exhausting the Earth's fertility and spreading the roots of hunger.
Increasingly, the world's fertile farmland is under threat from erosion, salination and desertification.
What is Malnutrition?
When a person is not getting enough food or not getting the right sort of food, malnutrition is just around the corner. Disease is often a factor, either as a result or contributing cause. Even if people get enough to eat, they will become malnourished if the food they eat does not provide the proper amounts of micronutrients - vitamins and minerals - to meet daily nutritional requirements.
Malnutrition is the largest single contributor to disease, according to the UN's Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN).
Malnutrition at an early age leads to reduced physical and mental development during childhood. Stunting, for example, affects more than 147 million pre-schoolers in developing countries, according to SCN's World Nutrition Situation 5th report. Iodine deficiency, the same report shows, is the world's greatest single cause of mental retardation and brain damage.
Undernutrition affects school performance and studies have shown it often leads to a lower income as an adult. It also causes women to give birth to low birth-weight babies.
Window of Opportunity
The first two years of life are the “window of opportunity” to prevent early childhood undernutrition that causes largely irreversible damage. The Hope Movement focuses on the earliest phase of life, i.e. from conception (-9 months) to 24 months of age, providing essential nutrients including vitamins and minerals.
Eliminating malnutrition involves sustaining the quality and quantity of food a person eats, as well as adequate health care and a healthy environment. The Hope Movement helps fight malnutrition by treating it -- giving malnourished people the food and nutrients they need -- but also by preventing it.
Hunger Stats
Global Hunger
- 1.02 billion people do not have enough to eat - more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union;
- The number of undernourished people in the world increased by 75 million in 2007 and 40 million in 2008, largely due to higher food prices;
- 907 million people in developing countries alone are hungry;
- Asia and the Pacific region is home to over half the world’s population and nearly two thirds of the world’s hungry people;
- More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women;
- 65 percent of the world's hungry live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
- Guatemala now has the highest level of hunger in the western hemisphere.
Child Hunger
- Every six seconds a child dies because of hunger and related causes;
- More than 70 percent of the world's 146 million underweight children under age five years live in just 10 countries, with more than 50 per cent located in South Asia alone;
- 10.9 million children under five die in developing countries each year. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of the deaths;
- The cost of undernutrition to national economic development is estimated at US$20-30 billion per annum;
- One out of four children - roughly 146 million - in developing countries are underweight;
- Every year WFP feeds more than 20 million children in school feeding programmes in some 70 countries. In 2008, WFP fed a record 23 million children.
Malnutrition
- It is estimated that 684,000 child deaths worldwide could be prevented by increasing access to vitamin A and zinc
- Undernutrition contributes to 53 percent of the 9.7 million deaths of children under five each year in developing countries. This means that one child dies every six seconds from malnutrition and related causes.
- Lack of Vitamin A kills a million infants a year
- Iron deficiency is the most prevalent form of malnutrition worldwide, affecting an estimated 2 billion people.6 Eradicating iron deficiency can improve national productivity levels by as much as 20 percent.
- Iron deficiency is impairing the mental development of 40-60 percent children in developing countries
- Vitamin A deficiency affects approximately 25 percent of the developing world’s pre-schoolers. It is associated with blindness, susceptibility to disease and higher mortality rates. It leads to the death of approximately 1-3 million children each year.
- Iodine deficiency is the greatest single cause of mental retardation and brain damage. Worldwide, 1.9 billion people are at risk of iodine deficiency, which can easily be prevented by adding iodine to salt
Food & HIV/AIDS
- In the countries most heavily affected, HIV has reduced life expectancy by more than 20 years, slowed economic growth, and deepened household poverty.
- In sub-Saharan Africa alone, the epidemic has orphaned nearly 12 million children aged under 18 years.
- Assistance for orphans and vulnerable children is estimated at US$0.31 per day.'
The Hope Movement is developing creative feeding programs around the world. You can get involved by adopting a program, helping us feed hundreds of thousands of people around the world, developing a creative approach to break the cycle of hunger.
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02/10/2011
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