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TitleA world free of poverty...but of hunger and malnutrition?
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2013
AuthorsCuesta, J
Paginationp. 1 - 4
Date Published2013-02-01
PublisherEuropean Association of Development Research and Training Institutes
Place PublishedGeneva, Switzerland
Keywordsagriculture, distribution mains, malnutrition, poverty
Abstract

The World Bank recently declared victory on one of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals: halving extreme poverty before 2015. In contrast, the target of halving the proportion of people suffering from hunger has only marginally improved since 1990; the paltry progress has been insufficient to reduce the number of hungry people in the growing global population. According to the United Nations, nearly a quarter of children in developing countries under the age of five are expected to remain undernourished in 2015. In South Asia, the percentage of malnourished children has improved only modestly from dismal initial levels, despite economic growth and solid progress in poverty reduction. In Africa, stunting (low height for age) rates have been increasing steadily, and surpassed those for Asia in 2000. However, specific regions have also shown that dramatic reductions in hunger and malnutrition are possible. In China alone, the number of people suffering from hunger has declined by 80 million, and average caloric intake has come close to 3000 calories per day per person in the last 20 years. Malnutrition rates among children under the age of five in East Asia more than halved in the same period, thus meeting the under-five underweight target, as has also happened in Latin America and the Caribbean region.The obvious question is whether such improvements can be achieved and sustained at a global scale, thus ensuring that the world will be able to feed (and feed nutritiously) its growing population, which is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. [authors abstract]

NotesWith 3 references on p. 4
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