More than 820 million people are hungry in the world

Ho, 19 July, GNA – 820 million euros approximately
people did not have enough to eat in 2018, compared to 811 million in the previous
year, which is the third year in a row.

This highlights the immense challenge of
achieve the Zero Hunger Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) by 2030, says a
new edition of the Annual Global Report on "The State of Food Security and
Nutrition "released Monday.

According to the report, copy to Ghana
News agency, the pace of progress in halving the number of children suffering from stunting and
reduce the number of babies born with low birth weight is too slow and also
puts the SDG Two nutrition goals even more inaccessible.

Adding to these challenges, overweight and
Obesity continued to increase in all regions, especially among children of school age
children and adults.

The risks of food insecurity are
higher for women than for men on all continents, the largest difference being registered in Latin America.
America.

United Nations Chiefs for Food and Nutrition
Agriculture (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development
Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Program
(WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in their joint preface to the
According to the report, "our actions to deal with these disturbing trends will have to be
more daring, not only at scale, but also in terms of multisectoral collaboration. "

"We must encourage poor and inclusive people
structural transformation focused on people and placing communities in the
center to reduce economic vulnerabilities and put us on the right track to end
hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition, "said the UN leaders.

Hunger is increasing in many countries where
economic growth is lagging behind, especially in middle-income countries and
which depend heavily on international trade in primary products.

The annual report of the UN also revealed that revenues
Inequalities are rising in many countries where hunger is on the rise,
making it even more difficult to manage the poor, vulnerable or marginalized
with slowdowns and economic downturns.

Slow progress in Africa is most alarming because
the region is experiencing the highest hunger rates in the world and continues to
is increasing slowly but steadily in almost all subregions.

In East Africa in particular, almost one
one-third of the population (30.8%) is undernourished.

Since 2011, almost half of the countries where
hunger has risen because of the economic slowdown or stagnation have been in Africa.

The largest number of undernourished people
(more than 500 million) live in Asia, mainly in South Asian countries.

Together, Africa and Asia have borne the greatest
the share of all forms of malnutrition, accounting for more than nine out of ten
all children with stunted growth and over nine out of every ten "wasted
children "around the world.

In South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, a
every third child is stunted.

In addition to the challenges of stunting
and waste, Asia and Africa are also home to almost three-quarters of
overweight children around the world, mainly because of the consumption of unhealthy products
regimes.

Go beyond hunger

This year's report introduced a new
indicator of measuring food insecurity at different levels of severity and
tracking progress toward achieving SDG 2: prevalence of moderate to severe foods
insecurity.

The indicator was based on the data obtained
directly to interviewees about their access to food during the 12
months, using the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES).

People with moderate food insecurity
faced with uncertainties about their ability to obtain food and had to reduce
the quality and / or quantity of food that they ate.

The report estimates that more than two billion people
people, mainly in low- and middle-income countries, do not have regular access
to healthy, nutritious and sufficient foods.

That said, but irregular access is also a problem.
challenge for high-income countries, including eight percent of the population
in North America and Europe.

This, he says, calls for a deep
food systems transformation to provide healthy diets produced sustainably
for a growing world population.

The report is part of the progress monitoring
towards the second goal of sustainable development, Zero Hunger, which aims to put an end to
hunger, promote food security and end all forms of malnutrition by 2030.

The 2017 report identified three factors
behind the recent rise in hunger so conflicts, climate and economic downturns.

This year's report focuses on the role of
economic slowdowns and slowdowns in food security and nutrition.

GNA