Among all the devastating theories that expect humanity to face an extremely bleak future, there is hope yet, coming from the latest report that the UN has conducted on the state of world hunger. Not only does the Millennium Development Goal regarding hunger stand close to being achieved, but there is hope that the young members of our generation will see world hunger be eradicated.
According to “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015” report, there are less than 800 million people around the world at the moment who are battling hunger. And while this is a tragic number when put against the tremendous discrepancy between world hunger and food waste, it actually constitutes a remarkable progress.
The number of people who are going hungry has actually declined by 216 million in the last 25 years and this was done by the immense efforts conducted by organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Program.
The encouraging thought is that the rate of hungry people is expected to drop more and more in the future and more importantly, this is predicted to happen at a faster and faster rate. Therefore, members of this generation actually do stand a chance to whiteness its eradication.
The Millennium Developmental Goal regarding hunger was that the 129 developing countries included in the UN report reduce their undernourishment rates by at least half. And amazingly, there is great hope that 72 of them will have managed to do so by the end of 2015.
As for the rest of countries, many of them find themselves close to the 50% goal, but require slightly more time to reach it.
“The near-achievement of the MDG hunger targets shows us that we can indeed eliminate the scourge of hunger in our lifetime. We must be the zero hunger generation.” said Jose Graziano da Silva, FAO’s director general.
In order to achieve this ambitious goal, it is imperative that the measures that have proven successful in these 25 years be further developed and continuously implemented. Furthermore, additional programs need to be in line with the current state of the world, from all points of view.
These programs need to take into consideration the fact that the global population is growing, that climate change will affect everything from food production conditions to proper storage and that local armed conflicts can affect their outcomes dramatically.
Therefore, an enormous joint effort needs to be put in, so as to assure the most efficient maintenance of ongoing programs meant to fight world hunger. Additionally, an interdisciplinary approach needs to stand at the core of future program development.
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