Hunger can be eradicated in a generation

A new report has revealed that there are now less then 800 million hungry people around the world, despite significant population growth — the lowest number since the United Nations (UN) first started counting back in 1990. Obviously we can’t celebrate the fact that there are still about 800 million people worldwide who don’t have sufficient access to food, but that’s 216 million fewer than in 1990-92, and the UN believes it’s on track to eradicate global hunger within a single generation, reports sciencealert.com.

In fact, 72 out of the 129 countries that are being monitored by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have halved undernourishment in their populations — a target that was originally set as part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 by the UN.

“The near-achievement of the MDG hunger targets shows that we can indeed eliminate the scourge of hunger in our lifetime,” Jose Graziano da Silva, the director general of the FAO, said in a press release. “We must be the zero hunger generation.”

The report, called The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015, shows that the prevalence of undernourishment in developing regions has dropped from 23.3 to 12.9 per cent just 25 years ago, with the biggest improvements made in East, Southeast and Central Asia, regions of Africa, as well as Latin America and the Caribbean countries.