Hunger kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said Thursday.
According to relative researches, WFP said in a release that there are 25.000 people, both of adults and children, die a day from hunger and related causes, in which one child is dying every six seconds from hunger and related diseases (or 14.000 children a day).
Meanwhile, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf called Saturday for a strengthened global governance system for world food security. Those aspects of the international trade system that have resulted in more hunger and poverty also have to be changed, he said.
– We have to build a more coherent and effective system of governance for world food security; we have to correct the policies and international trade system that have resulted in more hunger and poverty, said Diouf.
– What is important today is to realize that the time of talk has long past, Diouf told a forum in Russia, adding: – Now is the time for action. The food crisis has taught us that to defeat hunger, we have to deal with its root causes and not to continue coping with the consequences of past mistakes.
– The increase in food prices began in 2006, it accelerated in 2007, and peaked by June 2008. This meant that within only two years, international prices of basic food commodities rose by about 60 percent while those for grains doubled, Diouf said.
He added, that “it should be noted that average prices of food are still 17 percent higher than in 2006 and 24 percent higher than in 2005. In addition, the “stock-to-use” ratio for cereals in 2007-08, at 20.2 percent, was at its lowest level in 30 years”.
115 MILLION MORE HUNGRY
High food prices caused the number of hungry people in the world to soar by 115 million, according to the FAO and the financial crisis is aggravating the situation even more.
– Preliminary results of work conducted by FAO show that the financial and economic crisis could drag more than 100 million persons into chronic hunger, said Diouf, noting that 15 percent of the global population now do not get
enough food to eat.
Thirty-one countries are as of last month (May 2009) in a situation of food crisis requiring emergency assistance. Twenty of these are in Africa, nine in Asia and the Near East and two in Central America and the Caribbean.
PROPER FUNDS NEEDED
– This cannot be acceptable. How can we explain to people of good sense and good faith this dramatic situation in a state of abundance of international resources and when trillions of US dollars are being spent to stimulate the world economy? the head of the UN food and agricultural agency stressed.
The FAO Director General also called for more and “proper” funds to assist
developing countries increase their agricultural output by investing in rural
infrastructures and ensuring access to modern inputs and “assistance of
adequate institutions for small farmers.”
Kilder: Verdensbanken og FAO
