A daily selection of news reports from the world's media dealing with hunger and responses to it.
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Food prices are set to remain high and volatility in food markets could increase in coming months, a senior economist at the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation told Reuters on Thursday.
UN Women and the three Rome-based United Nations agencies working on food and agriculture today launched a joint programme to empower poor rural women through economic integration and food security initiatives. The programme, "Accelerating Progress Toward the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women," is a five-year initiative of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the World Food Programme (WFP). It will be implemented initially in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nepal, Niger and Rwanda.
The Niger government took the brave decision last year to sound the alarm early on hunger – the rainy season, from July to September, had been well below average and a drop in food production looked likely. (..) One year later, the picture is very different. This time the alarm is being raised by NGOs to help an estimated 500,000 affected by flooding in Niger. (..) Yes, in the years when the rains fail more people are pushed into hunger, but the NGO message is that this is something that will take years to fix. "Deep-rooted change is what is needed, not just a good harvest," says Denise Brown, head of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Niger.