"No More Hunger By 2015?"

A southern Sudanese nurse weighs a malnourished baby at the hospital in Bor, the capital of Jonglei state. Southern Sudan faces potential famine and the risk of further ethnic conflict, with over one million people already hit by serious food insecurity, the UN Children?s Fund deputy head has warned.(AFP/Peter Martell)

Nearly 200 million children in poor countries have stunted growth because of insufficient nutrition, according to a new report published by UNICEF Wednesday before a three-day international summit on the problem of world hunger.

The head of a U.N. food agency called on the world to join him in a day of fasting ahead of the summit to highlight the plight of 1 billion hungry people.

Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, said he hoped the fast would encourage action by world leaders who will take part in the meeting at his agency's headquarters starting Monday.

The U.N. Children's Fund published a report saying that nearly 200 million children under five in poor countries were stunted by a lack of nutrients in their food.

More than 90 percent of those children live in Africa and Asia, and more than a third of all deaths in that age group are linked to undernutrition, according to UNICEF.

"Unless attention is paid to addressing the causes of child and maternal undernutrition today, the costs will be considerably higher tomorrow," said UNICEF executive director Ann M. Veneman in a statement.

The Rome-based FAO announced earlier this year that hunger now affects a record 1.02 billion globally, or one in six people, with the financial meltdown, high food prices, drought and war blamed.

Countries like Brazil, Nigeria and Vietnam that have invested in their small farmers and rural poor are bucking the hunger trend, FAO chief Diouf told the news conference.

Agriculture investment from the private sector is also considered vital, and FAO is hosting a two-day forum in Milan starting Thursday with executives and business representatives to discuss how to coordinate such efforts. (Read Full Article)

About 200 million children suffer from stunted growth in developing countries due to chronic undernourishment, which also contributes to one-third of child deaths worldwide, UNICEF said Wednesday.

The study found that undernourishment, meaning the consumption or absorption of too few essential nutrients, was a contributing factor in more than a third of deaths of children under the age of five around the world.

But the scourge could be avoided if the international community honors its commitments on food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture, the United Nations Children's Fund stressed.

"Undernutrition steals a child's strength and makes illnesses that the body might otherwise fight off far more dangerous," said UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman.

"More than one third of children who die from pneumonia, diarrhea and other illnesses could have survived had they not been undernourished."

Veneman noted that those who survive often suffer from poorer physical health throughout their lives and from a diminished capacity to learn and to earn a decent income.

"They become trapped in an intergenerational cycle of ill health and poverty," she said. (Read Full Article)

 The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that 192 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015. They include reducing extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics such as AIDS, and developing a global partnership for development.

In 2001, recognizing the need to assist impoverished nations more aggressively, UN member states adopted the targets. The MDGs aim to spur development by improving social and economic conditions in the world's poorest countries.

They derive from earlier international development targets, and were officially established at the Millennium Summit in 2000, where all world leaders present adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration, from which the eight goals were promoted. (Read Full Article)

  Global poverty and hunger is distressing, particularly the reality of starving and malnourished children. Working through the UN or other global agencies is the best way to deal with this problem, as no one nation can feed the world's hungry and poor. As I see it, every poor and undeveloped nation must be committed to helping it's own citizens before expecting aid from other nations. A poor nation that spends extravagantly on it's armed forces or political leaders must  reset their economic priorities to receive aid from other nations. Priority should be given nations adversely affected by climate change, disease or conditions beyond their control. In my opinion, even though I am wary of some UN objectives, America along with other developed countries should work closely with the UN to eradicate hunger and poverty by 2015. As I see it, that is a worthy and necessary goal, for the good of humanity.

tags: politics  un  world hunger  world poverty  

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