There are just under 870 million hungry people in the world, according to a new hunger report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agriculutural Development. The report highlights programmes called "safety nets" as an important means of bringing that number down. In this episode, WFP Chief Economist Lynn Brown discusses some of the main conclusions in the report, such as how safety nets can lift people up by catching them when they fall.

Drought and conflict are a recipe for disaster in a country like Mali where hunger and malnutrition indicators are high even in the best of times. In this episode, we talk with WFP Country Director Nancy Walters who is leading a complex emergency operation to deliver food to people affected by the crisis.