Cutting world hunger in half

It is unpleasant news that acute hunger represents 10% of the hungry yet receives most of the media coverage and attention. This paper raises the flag that chronic and hidden hunger deserves much more global attention and support.

The paper notes that there are 854 million people in the world who are chronically or acutely malnourished, while hidden hunger from micronutrient deficiencies affects more than 2 billion people worldwide.

Findings include: 

• international hunger is largely rural; roughly 50% of the hungry are in small-holder farming households, and 30% are landless rural and fishers 
• low agricultural productivity is likely to be the primary reason for hungry in tropical Africa and remote parts of Asia and Latin America, whereas poverty and unemployment are the main causes in other regions
• economic growth alone is insufficient for eliminating hunger
• the challenge of halving hunger is closely linked with that of achieving other Millennium Development Goals
  

Recommendations comprise:

• policies conducive to ending hunger and poverty need to be put in place at all levels, from the local to the national, particularly raising the productivity of food-insecure farmers crops and products
• poor countries are recommended to integrate hunger reduction action plans into their poverty reduction, and adopt a multi-sectoral approach to hunger reduction
• donors are recommended to substitute cash for program food aid, so that governments can invest more flexibly in reducing hunger, besides conserving natural resources 
• properly functioning markets are critical in ensuring that farmers are able to earn a decent income, obtain the inputs they need to raise crop yields, and sell their produce at fair prices
• particular attention should be focused on children under the age of two, and free nutritionally balanced school meals should be provided for poor children