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WFP in Numbers | Hunger Facts

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.



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  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
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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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