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For Companies
22 September 2009

9 Ways Business Can Help Fight Hunger

Private sector contributions have benefitted WFP operations in 56 countries so far this year. Despite the strain of the global financial crisis, we are working with more than 100 private sector partners – including companies, foundations and individuals.
Food For Assets
21 September 2009

Bangladesh's Hungry Feel Heat Of Climate Change

For Samya Begum, hunger is never far away. She lives in a part of Bangladesh that is prone to flooding and a heavy monsoon can be the difference between having food and not having it. She is an example of why climate is a hunger issue and why climate change will produce more hunger.
Preventing Hunger
16 September 2009

Kenya: Farmers Rely On WFP To Get Through Drought

Mary Muthohi is among the 3.8 million Kenyans who are facing the bruising effects of drought. Yesterday she had to borrow food from her neighbour to feed her five children. The whole family had not eaten at all the day before. Watch video
Responding to Emergencies
16 September 2009

Hungry Get Hungrier As Funding For Food Aid Stutters

There are more hungry people in the world today than ever before. In many developing countries the poor cannot afford to buy food. At the same time, economic woes mean that many rich countries have cut back on funding for food assistance. It's a recipe for disaster.
Responding to Emergencies
15 September 2009

Bangladesh Food Lifeline In Jeopardy

Fancy Rajshahi, a 40-year-old Bangladeshi woman who lives in grinding poverty, was thrilled earlier this year when she started to receive bags of fortified wheat flour from WFP to help nourish her three boys. Now it seems her good luck could be about to vanish.
Nutrition
15 September 2009

Portraits Of Hunger: Shahida (Bangladesh)

In Bangladesh WFP is reaching barely 1 million people out of a target 5 million who cannot afford to buy the food they need for their families.
Nutrition
15 September 2009

Portraits Of Hunger: Francisca Casiano (Guatemala)

In Guatemala, WFP’s vital programme providing nutritious food supplements to 100,000 children and 50,000 pregnant and lactating women, is hanging by a thread.
Responding to Emergencies
15 September 2009

Portraits Of Hunger: Jennifer Kasani (Kenya)

In Kenya, where drought and high food prices have pushed almost 4 million into the hunger trap, WFP is preparing to reduce rations in October.
Nutrition
15 September 2009

Guatemala: Food Shortages Compound Malnutrition Problems

Guatemala has been hit by severe food shortages recently, worsening what were already dangerous levels of malnutrition. Fresh from a visit to the worst affected areas in the east of the country, WFP field monitor Lida Escobar describes what she saw.
Preventing Hunger
13 September 2009

WFP Pays Tribute To Father Of Green Revolution

Norman Ernest Borlaug, an American agronomist and humanitarian whose work on high-yield crops ensured millions of people escaped hunger, died on September 12. He was "our great champion in the battle against hunger," said WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran.
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Worth reading

Thought-provoking articles that deal with hunger and the issues involved in meeting the hunger challenge.

  • BBC News

    Hard choices over food versus education in Malawi

    Food or education? Public spending choices are never easy. But in Malawi, one of the world's poorest countries, the choices are particularly stark. The government has made "food security" - which means making sure people have enough to eat - the top priority for government spending.
  • New York Times

    No Shortage of Blame as Haiti Struggles to Feed Itself

    With its rich delta soil and a year-round growing season, Haiti's famous agricultural region seems capable of feeding the entire Caribbean. But Haiti is a net importer of food, spending about $400 million last year on purchases from abroad. The World Food Programme runs child nutrition and "food for work" operations.
  • Reuters Alertnet

    Solutions to global hunger are within our reach

    Technological advances in rice production have enabled China to feed an additional 60 million people per year since 1978, while investments in agriculture by farmers in Niger have revitalised an estimated 5 million hectares of land and improved access to food for at least 1 million people.
  • Reuters

    Special report -The fight over the future of food

    At first glance, Giuseppe Oglio's farm near Milan looks like it's suffering from neglect. Weeds run rampant amid the rice fields and clover grows unchecked around his millet crop. Oglio, a third generation farmer eschews modern farming techniques -- chemicals, fertilizers, heavy machinery -- in favor of a purely natural approach. It is not just ecological, he says, but profitable, and he believes his system can be replicated in starving regions of the globe.
  • Associated Press (AP)

    Devastating Drought Alters Life For Kenya Nomads

    When 64-year-old Jimale Irobe was a young man, he guided his herds of cows and camels through knee-high grass. These days the scrubby blades barely reach his ankles even in the rainy season, and there is never enough grass to go around. The cattle cannot feed, and the nomadic families that depend on them for milk and meat cannot survive.(..) Aid agency Oxfam says 23 million people need food aid this year after the drought that swept across eastern Africa and the Horn region. Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia have been particularly hard hit. And a September report by the International Food Policy Research Institute predicted that the worldwide effects of climate change will lead to twenty-five million additional children becoming malnourished by 2050.