World Hunger


	Gleaning America's Fields ~ Feeding America's Hungry

World Hunger

There are more hungry people in the world today – 854 million – than there were in 1996.

In November 1996 the heads of State and Government of more than 180 nations attending the World Food Summit pledged to eradicate the scourge of hunger. World leaders committed themselves to an ambitious but achievable intermediate target: to halve by 2015 the number of undernourished people in the world from the 1990 level. More than ten years later, the sad reality is that virtually no progress has been made towards that goal. There actually are more undernourished people today than there were in 1996.

However, the world's food supply is not in crisis. The world produces enough wheat, rice and other grains to provide every human being with 3,200 calories a day. When other foods such as vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish are included, enough food is available globally to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day. The reason so many are hungry is that many people are simply too poor to buy readily available food. Poverty is the leading cause of world hunger.

Reports About World Hunger

U.N. Food & Agriculture Report

The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization monitors progress in hunger reduction worldwide. They publish an annual report on global and national efforts to reduce by half the number of undernourished people in the world by the year 2015.

FAO hunger report

Bread for the World Report

The Bread for the World Institute publishes an annual report on the state of world hunger. As part of the Institute's commitment to anti-hunger education, the report strengthens the anti-hunger movement by analyzing the causes of and solutions to hunger. .

BFW hunger report

International Food Policy Research Institute Reports

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty by identifying and analyzing alternative international, national, and local policies in support of improved food security and nutrition. They annually publish a Global Hunger Index.

global hunger index

Millennium Development Goals progress reports

On September 8, 2000 the United Nations adopted eight Millennium Development Goals, the first of which was to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty. Reports on progress toward these goals are issued annually.

MDG progress report

World Bank Hunger Report

The World Bank issues annual Global Monitoring Reports on the progress being made toward the Millennium Development Goals.

MWorld Bank progress report

Global Hunger Facts

Most of the hunger in the world results from grinding, deeply rooted poverty.

GLOBAL HUNGER

Hunger and poverty claim 25,000 lives every day.
854 million people do not have enough to eat - more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union.
524 million of the world's hungry live in South Asia - more than the populations of Australia and USA.
More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women.
The number of chronically hungry people worldwide is growing by an average of four million per year at current trends

CHILD HUNGER

Every five seconds a child dies because she or he is hungry.
Undernutrition in children under the age 18 affects an estimated 350 to 400 million children.
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.

United Nations World Food Programme hunger facts

Solving Hunger Globally

In 1963 President Kennedy said, “We have the means, we have the capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the earth in our lifetime. We need only the will.” That statement is even more true today. God has provided the abundance of food necessary to feed everyone on the planet. On top of that, God has given us the financial and technological resources to get the food where it is needed. All we need is the will to make it happen. Only when a critical mass of people demanding that hunger be eliminated is achieved will hunger come to an end.

At the Society of St. Andrew we believe that the first step to ending world hunger is to end hunger in America.

do something about hunger