UN food agency proposes new global drive to halve hunger by 2015

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) today proposed a new global anti-hunger drive which the agency said would require $24 billion in public investments in order to cut the number of malnourished in half by 2015.

Without this outlay of funds, FAO warned that the world would have 600 million hungry people in 2015. Responding to their plight was not only a moral imperative but also sound economics, the agency argued, noting that halving hunger is expected to yield additional benefits worth at least $120 billion a year resulting from longer and healthier lives for all those who benefit.

FAO’s proposed anti-hunger programme combines investment in agriculture and rural development with measures to enhance access to food for the most seriously undernourished. It focuses mainly on small farmers and aims to create more opportunities for rural people, who represent 70 per cent of the world’s poor.

The new drive was launched just ahead of the opening of a meeting on “the World Food Summit: five years later,” which will convene in Rome on 10 June to take stock of progress made towards ending hunger and to identify ways to accelerate the process.