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Hunger Statistics
Every year, authors, journalists, teachers, researchers, schoolchildren and students ask us for statistics about hunger and malnutrition. To help answer these questions, we've compiled a list of useful facts and figures on world hunger.
870 million people in the world do not have enough to eat. This number has fallen by 130 million since 1990, but progress slowed after 2008.
The vast majority of hungry people (98 percent) live in developing countries, where almost 15% of the population is undernourished.
Asia and the Pacific have the largest share of the world's hungry people (some 563 million) but the trend is downward.
If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million.
Undernutrition contributes to 2.6 million deaths of children under five each year - one third of the global total.
One out of six children -- roughly 100 million -- in developing countries is underweight.
One in four of the world's children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three.
80 percent of the world's stunted children live in just 20 countries.
66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.
WFP calculates that US$3.2 billion is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school-age children.
1. Source:State of Food Insecurity in the World,FAO, 2012
2. Source: State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2012
3. Source: State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2012
4. Source: Women in Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development, FAO, 2011
5. Source: Levels and Trends in Child Mortality, UNICEF, 2011
6. Source: Global health Observatory, WHO, 2011
7. Source: Prevalence and Trends of Stunting among ... Children, Public Health Nutrition, 2012
8. Source: Maternal and Child Undernutrition: Effective Action at National Level,The Lancet, 2008
9. Source:Two Minutes to Learn About School Meals, WFP, 2012
10. Source:Two Minutes to Learn About School Meals, WFP, 2012
