World has more than 1 billion hungry people

More than one billion people go to bed hungry everyday as the deadly combination of a severe food shortage and one of the worst global financial crises in living memory has shrunk food aid to an all-time low, a UN body said on Wednesday.

"The combination of food and economic crises has pushed the number of hungry people worldwide to historic levels -- more than one billion people are undernourished," Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated in its annual hunger report-2009, produced in collaboration with the World Food Programme.

Bulk of the starving population belong to the developing world, with Asia and the Pacific region estimated to have about 642 million hungry people in 2009, Sub-Saharan Africa 265 million, Latin America and the Caribbean 53 million while the Near East and North Africa 42 million, the report said.

On the other hand, the world's rich country have 15 million people who are suffering from chronic hunger, the report released on the eve of World Food Day on October 16 said.

"World leaders have reacted forcefully to the financial and economic crisis and succeeded in mobilising billions of dollars in a short time period. The same strong action is needed now to combat hunger and poverty," FAO director-general Jacques Diouf said.

"The rising number of hungry people is intolerable. We have the economic and technical means to make hunger disappear, what is missing is a stronger political will to eradicate hunger forever," he noted.

Photograph: Dipak Chakraborty