LONDON (AlertNet) - Hunger is costing poor countries about $450 billion a year in lost gross domestic product (GDP), according to aid agency ActionAid. That is more than ten times the sum the United Nations estimates is needed to meet the worldÂ?s millennium promise to halve global hunger.
ActionAid also says that unless governments act now, more than a million more children could die of malnutrition by 2015 and half of Africa wonÂ?t have enough food to live on in ten years.
The warning comes in a report released ahead of next weekÂ?s U.N. summit in New York to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), set globally in 2000 and due to be met by 2015.
ActionAid says much of the world will miss the first goal which includes a pledge to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people going hungry.
Twenty out of 28 poor countries are off track and 12 of these are going backwards on this promise, it says in its report WhoÂ?s Really Fighting Hunger? which scores nations on their efforts to tackle hunger and shows the dates it believes they will meet their targets.
Â?Fighting hunger now will be 10 times cheaper than ignoring it. Every year reduced worker productivity, poor health and lost education costs poor countries billions,Â? ActionAidÂ?s Chief Executive Joanna Kerr said.
Lack of food during childhood causes cognitive and physical damage, condemning people to a lifetime of ill health and low earnings which in turn reduces overall economic output.
The report coincides with new U.N. figures showing that the number of hungry people has dropped by 98 million to 925 million in the past year - the first decline in 15 years. The number of hungry topped 1 billion in 2009 partly as a result of the global food and financial crises.
But an ActionAid spokeswoman said: Â?This is not a time for celebration... the goal to halve hunger is still decades off track.Â?
MISERABLY OFF TRACK
ActionAid says that if you exclude China - which will meet its hunger goal five years early - the proportion of hungry people in the world is the same now as in 1990.
A lack of investment in agriculture, poor support for farmers when harvests fail and volatile global food markets are all to blame.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is the worst backslider with 76 percent of the population going hungry Â? a fourfold increase since 1990, according to ActionAid. Burundi, Sierra Leone, Pakistan and Lesotho are also bottom of its scorecard. More surprisingly, Asian economic powerhouse India is unlikely to meet its target until 2081, the agency says.
But itÂ?s not all bad news. Brazil, China, Ghana, Malawi and Vietnam have already met their targets or are about to. ActionAid says they have slashed hunger by increasing investment in small farms and introducing social protection schemes such as free school meals and food rations when harvests fail.
Â?Malawi and Ghana are shining examples of how supporting small scale farmers is key to halving hunger,Â? ActionAidÂ?s Africa hunger coordinator Henry Malumo said. Â?With only five years left and a billion people hungry, itÂ?s critical the world follow their example.Â?
Ghana is the only African country likely to meet all its MDG targets on poverty and hunger, while Malawi has reduced the number of people living on food handouts to 150,000 from 4.5 million in five years.
OXFAM WARNING
In a separate report, Halving World Hunger: Still Possible?, aid agency Oxfam calls on world leaders meeting at the Sept. 20-22 New York summit to develop a global action plan to save the MDGs.
Â?Unless an urgent rescue package is developed to accelerate fulfillment of all the MDGs, we are likely to witness the greatest collective failure in history,Â? it warns.
Oxfam says the drop in the number of hungry is largely down to luck, including two good harvests, rather than good policies and investment.
Â?Any reduction in the number of hungry people is welcome but the food crisis has not gone away; 925 million hungry people is still a scandal,Â? OxfamÂ?s International Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs said.
Â?Another global food crisis could explode at any time unless governments tackle the underlying causes of hunger, including food price volatility, decades of under investment in agriculture, and climate change.Â?
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
