World hunger easing but 1 in 9 people undernourished: UN

ROME: The number of hungry people in the world has fallen sharply over the past decade but 805 million, or one in nine of the global population, still do not have enough to eat, three UN food and agriculture agencies said on Tuesday. The number of chronically undernourished people dropped by more than 100 million, equivalent to a country the size of the Philippines, according to a report by the United Nations food agency (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and World Food Program (WFP). Government drives to improve nutrition have helped the developing world move toward a UN goal of halving the number of people suffering from hunger between 1990 and 2015, said the report entitled “The State of Food Insecurity in the World.” But success stories such as Brazil mask struggles in countries like Haiti, where the number of hungry people rose from 4.4 million in 1990-92 to 5.3 million in 2012-14. “We cannot celebrate yet because we must reach 805 million people without enough food for a healthy and productive life,” WFP executive director Ertharin Cousin said in Rome.   REUTERS