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

• 25,000 people (adults and children) die every day from hunger and related causes
  Source: FAO & The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006
  
  
• 923 million people do not have enough to eat - more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union
  Source: FAO & Briefing Paper: Hunger on the Rise, 2008
  
  
• The number of undernourished people in the world increased by 75 million in 2007, largely due to higher food prices.
  Source: FAO & Briefing Paper: Hunger on the Rise, 2008
  
  
• 907 million people in developing countries alone are hungry
  Source: FAO & Briefing Paper: Hunger on the Rise, 2008
  
  
• Asia and the Pacific region is home to over half the world’s population and nearly two thirds of the world’s hungry people.
  Source: FAO & Briefing Paper: Hunger on the Rise, 2008
  
  
• More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women
  Source: FAO & The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006
  
  
• The number of hungry people in the developing world slid towards 17% in 2007, compared to 16% in 2003-05
  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

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  FOOD AID & HIV/AIDS

• Every minute, a child under 15 dies of an AIDS-related illness. Every minute, another child becomes HIV-positive

Source: WFP HIV/AIDS unit, 2007


• HIV/AIDS directly impacts a person's ability to provide enough food to feed themselves or their families, directly compromising their household's food security

Source: WFP HIV/AIDS unit, 2007


• Less than one in five people at risk of becoming infected with HIV world wide have access to basic prevention services

Source: WFP HIV/AIDS unit, 2007


• WFP and UNAIDS estimate that it costs an average of US$0.66 per day to provided nutritional support to an AIDS patient and his/her family

Source: WFP HIV/AIDS unit, 2007


• Children with HIV/AIDS may face as a result: poverty, malnutrition, inadequate access to social services, discrimination, stigmatisation, gender inequality and sexual exploitation

Source: WFP HIV/AIDS unit, 2007


• Nutritious food combined with antiretroviral drugs are essential to maintaining the immune system and helping prolong the life of someone with HIV

Source: WFP HIV/AIDS unit, 2007


• TB is the main cause of death among AIDS-sufferers. WFP uses food aid to encourage patients to treat TB

Source: WFP Brochure, HIV/AIDS& Children: Bringing hope to a generation


• By 2020, the AIDS epidemic will have claimed one-fifth or more of the agricultural labour force in most southern African countries

Source: WFP HIV/AIDS unit, 2007


• Most households will never fully recover from the death of a parent which means that the effects of HIV/AIDS are likely to be felt for generations to come

Source: WFP HIV/AIDS unit, 2007

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  FOOD & AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

• The concentration of hunger in rural areas suggests that no sustained reduction in hunger is possible without special emphasis on agricultural and rural development

Source: FAO, The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006


• Productivity-driven growth in agriculture can have a strong positive impact on the rural non-farm economy by boosting demand for locally-produced non-agricultural goods and by keeping prices low

Source: FAO, The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006

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  AID SPENDING

• In a 1970 UN Resolution, most industrialised nations committed themselves to tackling global poverty by spending 0.7 percent of their national incomes on international aid by 1975. Only Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Denmark regularly meet his target

Source: DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) facts map, 2006-2007


• The 22 member countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, the world's major donors, provided USD 103.9 billion in aid in 2006 - down by 5.1 percent from 2005

Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2007


• The largest donors were the United States (US$24 billion), Japan (US$18 billion), the United Kingdom (US$13 billion), Germany and France (US$12 billion each), the Netherlands (nearly US$6 billion), Spain and Italy (just over US$4 billion each) representing 80 percent of the total

Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2007

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  WFP FOOD AID

• Since it was founded in 1962, WFP has fed more than 1.4 billion of the world's poorest people and invested more than US$30 billion in development and emergency relief
• WFP's largest operation in 2006 was Sudan which targeted 6.1 million beneficiaries. The operation accounted for 20 percent of total direct expenditure

Source: WFP Annual Performance Report 2007


• Partners distributed 90 percent of WFP's food in 2006

Source: WFP Annual Performance Report 2007


• Fifty-six percent of WFP's emergency operations in 2006 were related to disasters

Source: WFP Annual Performance Report 2007

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  EMERGENCIES

• WFP helped 16.4 million people through emergency operations in 2006

Source: WFP Annual Performance Report 2007

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  LOGISTICS

• In 2006, WFP delivered a total of 4 million metric tons of food assistance by land, sea and air

Source: WFP Annual Performance Report 2007

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