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UN: number of chronically hungry has dropped below 1 billion

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• published: 28 Jul 2015
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AP TELEVISION Rome, Italy - 12 September 2010 1. Wide of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) headquarters building 2. Close of flag 3. Wide of news conference 4. FAO officials taking their seats 5. SOUNDBITE (English) Jacques Diouf, FAO director-general: "925 (m) million people will be hungry and malnourished in 2010. While this figure marks an improvement compared to last years' spike in world hunger of one (b) billion persons, there is no calls for complacence." 6. Cutaway of audience 7. SOUNDBITE (English) Jacques Diouf, FAO director-general: "A child dies every six seconds because of undernourishment related problems. It's the world largest tragedy and scandal." 8. Cutaway of reporters 9. SOUNDBITE (English) Josette Sheeran, Executive director of the World Food Program: "I've just returned from Pakistan and again saw a population that was already weakened. 20 (m) million people hit with the floods, 10.1 (m) million in need of urgent food assistance but also of a particular kind of assistance that has nutritional content for the children. So, in Pakistan we have launched the largest deployment ever of highly nutritious food to the children there who were already weakened, were already highly malnourished in proportions to be able to meet these urgent needs." 10. Various shots of news briefing FAO HANDOUT FILE: Pakistan - August 2010 11. Various of floods 12. Various of people in flood water 13. Various of aid being unloaded and carried away by victims STORYLINE The number of chronically hungry people in the world dipped considerably below the one (b) billion mark - the first drop in 15 years - thanks partly to a fall in food prices after spikes that sparked rioting a few years ago, UN agencies said on Tuesday. Still, an estimated 925 (m) million people are undernourished worldwide, and the latest figures don't reflect the repercussions from the massive flooding in Pakistan. The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) report suggested some progress in the battle to end hunger, but stressed the world is far from achieving the UN promoted Millennium Development Goal of reducing the proportion of undernourished people in developing countries to 10 percent by 2015. The report estimated there are 98 (m) million fewer chronically hungry people than in 2009, when the figure just topped one (b) billion. That's partly because food prices have fallen from the peaks in 2007-2008, when they sparked violence in several developing countries, and because cereal and rice harvests have been strong. Cereal production this year was the third-highest ever recorded, despite a drought-fuelled wheat shortfall in Russia, said FAO director-general Jacques Diouf. The flooding in Pakistan is also a variable that could affect future numbers. The floods have affected (m) millions and robbed farmers of crops about to be harvested, next season's farmland and much seed. While welcoming the dip in the number of hungry, the non-governmental aid agency Oxfam attributed the improvement largely "to luck" and not to a change in policies or increased investment "needed to address the underlying causes in hunger." The UN promoted Millennium Development Goal is to halve the proportion of undernourished people in developing countries from 20 percent in 1990-92 to 10 percent in 2015. FAO estimates the proportion of the hungry would have been reduced to 16 percent by this year. FAO's Diouf noted that only a small fraction - 420 (m) million US dollars - of the 20 (b) billion US dollars in agricultural development assistance pledged by the 2009 Group of Eight developed nations summit and 2 (b) billion US dollars more from a later G-20 meeting has materialised. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/fa1cab7acd7282203b0a9f0993b7cd79 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork