World made no progress to halve number of hungry-FAO

ROME, Oct 30 (Reuters) Ten years after world leaders pledged to halve the number of underfed people in the world, there has been no reduction in their number, a United Nations report issued today said.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which hosted the 1996 World Food Summit where nations set the target, said there were still 854 million underfed people, though they were a smaller proportion of the population and the goal could still be reached by the 2015 deadline.

''Ten years later, we are confronted with the sad reality that virtually no progress has been made towards that objective,'' FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said in the organisation's annual report on ''food insecurity''.

''Compared with 1990-92 (the baseline period) the number of undernourished people in the developing countries has declined by a meagre 3 million -- a number within the bounds of statistical error.'' At the 1996 summit, Diouf said the goal of halving the number of underfed people between 1990 and 2015 was a minimum. ''We should be able to do better and more,'' he said at the time.

The report's latest figures, which go up to 2003, show that the 1990s was a bleak period for reducing world hunger, despite fine words by leaders at the summit.

The 3 million cut in the number of hungry people in the developing world since the summit compared with cuts of 37 million in the 1970s and 100 million in the 1980s.

''It is almost natural to dismiss the period since the WFS (World Food Summit) as a 'lost decade'. To do so, however, would be a mistake,'' Diouf said.

Although the absolute number of hungry people has not fallen, they represent a declining proportion of the growing global population, and the world should meet the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving the percentage of hungry people in the total population by 2015, the report forecast.

By 2015, 10.1 percent of the developing world's population will be hungry, compared with 20.3 per cent in 1990-92.

But stark differences in development in various regions mean the proportion of the populations of Africa and the Near East who go hungry will not be cut at the same rate and are set to miss the Millennium Development Goal on hunger.

By 2015, sub-Saharan Africa will be home to 30 per cent of the world's hungry, up from 20 per cent in 1990, the FAO said.

Despite the lack of progress toward the food summit goal halfway to the 2015 deadline, the FAO said the target could still be met with efforts to improve agriculture in the developing world.

''Is the 2015 WFS target still attainable? The answer should be a resounding 'yes''' Diouf said.

REUTERS SP RN1748