One Billion Are Hungry

A Mercy Corps beneficiaries show off their garden in Niger. Photo: Jeremy Barnicle/Mercy Corps
A Mercy Corps beneficiaries show off their garden in Niger. Photo: Jeremy Barnicle/Mercy Corps

Last week the UN announced that the number of people suffering from hunger now totals one billion worldwide.

Not too surprisingly, a BBC article points out that the vast majority of the world's hungry live in developing countries. Only 15 million are in the developed world. In contrast, 265 million live in sub-Saharan Africa and more than two times as many — 642 million to be exact — live in the Asia-Pacific region.

Since the economic crisis hit, there are about 100 million more people that are hungry. The UN attributes this rise in world hunger to unemployment and low wages. This is turn hurts people's ability to buy and grow food.

Jacques Diouf, the director general of the UNFAO, focused on agricultural investment as one of the solutions to help developing countries address hunger issues. Diouf is quoted by the BBC as saying, "Investment in agriculture must be increased because for the majority of poor countries a healthy agricultural sector is essential to overcome poverty and hunger and is a pre-requisite for overall economic growth."

At a time when need has never been greater, Mercy Corps has been able to expand our capacity to address hunger in the communities where we work.

Comments

in Romania, Calarasi , Lehliu-Gara

Hungry in the World

I don`t know what to say ... I`m very sad when i hear all this things , but me like an usual person i can`t do nothing about this . Anyway in my country i don`t think that there are so many people that die of hungriness because the steal a lot ;). But i a have o sugestion for this problem !! In the world there are o lot of rich persons who don`t have what to do with their money . so they can help those poor people , espeacially America who has a huge bugget can take a little from them and give a lot for this people . And also you can open a account in a bank so that all the people in the world can donate some money and help them ... thanks for your attention and i hope you will read this and try this sugestions !!! bye now gheorghe doru , Romania

Yeah, Romania. Take from

Yeah, Romania. Take from America who is having the largest recession since the Great Depression. They have no money. Can I hear your plan B, or the real Plan A?

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