HUNGER FACTS

Every year, authors, journalists, teachers, researchers, schoolchildren and students send WFP queries seeking statistics about hunger and malnutrition.

To help answer their questions, WFP has compiled a database of useful facts and figures on world hunger, food aid and food production using a variety of sources (NGOs, other UN agencies). It is hoped this information will educate and inform as well as encourage critical reflection on hunger and poverty.

  GLOBAL HUNGER

    * Hunger and poverty claim 25,000 lives every day
      Source: FAO & The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006

    * 854 million people do not have enough to eat - more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union
      Source: FAO & The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006

    * 820 million people in developing countries alone are hungry - one in four lives in sub-Saharan Africa
      Source: FAO & The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006

    * In the 1990s, global poverty dropped by 20 percent. The number of hungry people increased by 18 million
      Source: Food as Aid: Trends, Needs and Challenges in the 21st Century

    * 524 million of the world's hungry live in South Asia - more than the populations of Australia and USA
      Source: FAO & The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006

    * More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women
      Source: FAO & The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006

    * The number of chronically hungry people worldwide is growing by an average of four million per year at current trends
      Source: FAO & The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006

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  CHILD HUNGER

    * Every five seconds a child dies because she or he is hungry

      Source: FAO State of Food Insecurity in the World 2006

    * Undernutrition in children under the age 18 affects an estimated 350 to 400 million children

      Source: Global Framework for Action, 2006

    * 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

      Source: Progress for Children: A Report Card on Nutrition (No.4), UNICEF, May 2006

    * 10.9 million children under five die in developing countries each year. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of the deaths

      Source: UNICEF

    * The cost of undernutrition to national economic development is estimated at US$20-30 billion per annum

      Source: Progress for Children, A report card on Nutrition, 2006

    * One out of four children - roughly 146 million - in developing countries are underweight

      Source: The State of the World's Children 2007, UNICEF

    * WFP provided school meals and/or take home rations to 20.2 million children in 71 countries in 2006

      Source: WFP School Feeding Unit

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  MALNUTRITION

    * It is estimated that 684,000 lives child deaths worldwide could be prevented by increasing access to vitamin A and zinc

      Source: WFP Annual Report 2007

    * Almost five million children die each year from preventable diseases such as diarrehoea and measles every year

      Source: WFP Hunger Facts 2006

    * Lack of Vitamin A kills a million infants a year

      Source: Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency, A Global Progress Report, UNICEF

    * Iron deficiency is the most common form of malnutrition, affecting 180 million children aged under four

      Source: WFP Facts and Figures on Child Hunger

    * Iron deficiency is impairing the mental development of 40-60 percent children in developing countries

      Source: Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency, A Global Progress Report, p2, UNICEF

    * Lack of vitamin A weakens the immune system of 40 percent of under fives in poor countries, and can cause blindness

      Source: Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency, A Global Progress Report, p2, UNICEF - WFP Facts and Figures on Child Hunger, p2

    * Iodine deficiency is the main cause of brain damage in the early years of a child's life

      Source: WFP Facts and Figures on Child Hunger, p2

    * WFP-supported deworming reached 11 million children in 2006

      Source: WFP Annual Report 2007

 

 http://www.wfp.org/aboutwfp/facts/hunger_facts.asp