791 Million People Underfed, U.N. Says

The number of people going hungry in the developing world has dropped by 40 million in five years, but faster action is needed to meet an international pledge to halve world hunger by 2015, the United Nations said Saturday.

The 180-nation Food and Agriculture Organization said the number of malnourished people had dropped to 791 million in the last available survey for 1995-97, but the decline masked a deterioration in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than a dozen countries still face serious shortages.

The U.N. agency hopes to reduce the number of poorly fed people to 400 million by 2015, in line with promises made at a 1996 World Food Summit in Rome.

But stagnating agricultural production in developing nations and global financial crises have hit the world’s poorest regions as commodity prices languish near two-decade lows.

A report on world food supplies presented to an FAO meeting in Rome on Saturday said the number of underfed people had decreased from 831 million in 1990-92.

“This reduction of about 8 million people per year on average is encouraging, but still far below the figure of 20 million required to achieve the objective of the World Food Summit,” FAO Director General Jacques Diouf of Senegal told delegates after being reelected to a second term.

The toll on populations in sub-Saharan Africa has doubled over 25 years, with 180 million people lacking food in 1995-97 compared with 164 million in 1990-92 and 89 million when the first report was drawn up for 1969-71.

What progress has been achieved since the ringing pledges issued at the 1996 summit has been concentrated mainly in East and Southeast Asia.

The FAO said it was concerned by the lack of progress in other regions, including the Caribbean, which is still recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch in October 1998.

The organization also repeated the alarm over shortages in East Africa, where food aid for 5 million people is needed in Ethiopia alone.

In all, 37 countries face food emergencies, a figure unchanged from a year ago, according to the FAO report.

Founded in 1945, the FAO advises governments on tackling hunger and assisting economic development.