At the 1996
World Food Summit (WFS), heads of government and the international
community committed to reducing the number of hungry people in the world
by half. Five years later, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
lowered this level of ambition by only seeking to halve the proportion
of the hungry.
The latest State of World Food
Insecurity (SOFI) report for 2015 by the Rome-based Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), World Food Programme and International Fund for
Agricultural Development estimates almost 795 million people — one in
nine people worldwide — remain chronically hungry.
The number of undernourished
people — those regularly unable to consume enough food for an active and
healthy life — in the world has thus only declined by slightly over a
fifth from the 1010.6 million estimated for 1991 to 929.6 million in
2001, 820.7 million in 2011 and 794.6 million in 2014.
With the number of chronically
hungry people in developing countries declining from 990.7 million in
1991 to 779.9 million in 2014, their share in developing countries has
declined by 44.4 per cent, from 23.4 to 12.9 per cent over the 23 years,
but still short of the 11.7 per cent target.
Thus, the MDG 1c target of
halving the chronically undernourished’s share of the world’s population
by the end of 2015 is unlikely to be met at the current rate of
progress. However, meeting the target is still possible, with
sufficient, immediate, additional effort to accelerate progress,
especially in countries which have showed little progress thus far.
Overall progress has been highly
uneven. All but 15 million of the world’s hungry live in developing
countries. Some countries and regions have seen only slow progress in
reducing hunger, while the absolute number of hungry has even increased
in several cases.
By the end of 2014, 72 of the
129 developing countries monitored had reached the MDG 1c target — to
either reduce the share of hungry people by half, or keep the share of
the chronically undernourished under five per cent. Several more are
likely to do so by the end of 2015.
Instead of halving the number of
hungry in developing regions by 476 million, this number was only
reduced by 221 million, just under half the earlier, more ambitious WFS
goal. Nevertheless, some 29 countries succeeded in at least halving the
number of hungry. This is significant as this shows that achieving and
sustaining rapid progress in reducing hunger is feasible.
Marked differences in
undernourishment persist across the regions. There have been significant
reductions in both the share and number of undernourished in most
countries in South-East Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, Latin America and
the Caribbean — where the MDG target of halving the hunger rate has
been reached.
While sub-Saharan Africa has the
highest share of the chronically hungry, almost one in four, South Asia
has the highest number, with over half a billion undernourished. West
Asia alone has seen an actual rise in the share of the hungry compared
to 1991, while progress in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Oceania
has not been sufficient to meet the MDG hunger target by 2015.
Despite the shortfall in
achieving the MDG1c target and the failure to get near the WFS goal of
halving the number of hungry, world leaders are likely to commit to
eliminating hunger and poverty by 2030 when they announce the post-2015
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the United Nations in September.
To be sure, there is enough food
produced to feed everyone in the world. However, hundreds of millions
of people do not have the means to access enough food to meet their
dietary energy needs, let alone what is needed for diverse diets to
avoid ‘hidden hunger’ by meeting their micronutrient requirements.
With high levels of deprivation,
unemployment and underemployment likely to prevail in the world in the
foreseeable future, poverty and hunger are unlikely to be overcome by
2030 without universally establishing a social protection floor for all.
Such efforts will also need to provide the means for sustainable
livelihoods and resilience.
The Second International
Conference of Nutrition in Rome last November articulated commitments
and proposals for accelerated progress to overcome undernutrition.
Improvements in nutrition will require sustained and integrated efforts
involving complementary policies, including improving health conditions,
food systems, social protection, hygiene, water supply and education.
It is widely acknowledged that there is more than sufficient food produced worldwide to meet all human needs. The paragraph in bold reaffirms that. We would add that attempting to refashion some aspects of capitalist principles to achieve the goal has been a regular and ongoing failure. Evidence shows that each time there is a review of the state of the millenium goals figures are cleverly manipulated to show progress, whatever the actual numbers reveal.
What is really needed if, as a global population, we are serious about eliminating hunger and poverty is the removal of the cause, thereby enabling us to deal with the situation immediately, not by 2030. Profits being the number one priority in capitalism are the reason that the hungry can't access food. To eliminate profit we must eliminate capitalism. Let's do it and get serious about feeding everyone now!
