MEDIA BRIEF: WFP's HUNGER MAP AND HUNGER HOT SPOTS 2001

As the UN's frontline agency in the global fight against hunger, WFP has long produced vulnerability assessment maps for individual countries where it runs operations.

The map is intended as an educational tool to help teachers and students better understand the distribution of global hunger. It will be updated periodically and copies can be ordered by schools and other oganisations directly off our Website.

But identifying where hunger is, or where it is likely to occur, is also a key element in the global fight against food insecurity.

For 2001, WFP has identified a number of hunger "hot spots", where it predicts war, drought or poverty will force millions of people to go without food.

Putting Global Hunger on the map: Facts & Figures
	There are 830 million undernourished people in the world today and 791 million live in developing countries. The undernourished have an average deficit of more than 300 kilocalories per person per day
	The largest number of people who suffer nutritional deficiencies live in Asia and the Pacific region, where poverty, unsafe water and poor sanitation contribute to poor health
	In the Asia and Pacific region 525 million or 17% of the total population of 3 billion suffer from under-nourishment and the worst hit countries are North Korea, Mongolia, Cambodia and Bangladesh. In addition, there are millions of drought-affected people in Tajikistan, Pakistan, Iran, Armenia and Georgia
	But the worst conditions continue to be, largely, in Africa. One out of every three people in Sub-Sahara Africa is undernourished. High government debt burdens, inadequate funding for health and education, pervasive poverty, poor agricultural productivity, weak public institutions and the AIDS pandemic all are major causes
	In Sub-Sahara Africa 180 million or 33% of the total population of 539 million suffer from under-nourishment and the worst hit countries include Angola, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea
	In the Near East and North Africa, 33 million or 9% of the total population of 360 million suffer from under-nourishment and the worst hit country is Afghanistan.
	In the Latin America and Caribbean region, 53 million or 11% of the total population of 481 million suffer from under-nourishment and the worst hit countries are Haiti, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Honduras.
	Although not depicted on the WFP Hunger Map, many countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe undergoing the transition from centrally-planned to market-based economies have experienced economic hardship and rising levels of under-nutrition during the last decade
	The number of people suffering under-nourishment has consequently been rising