Figures published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation show that more than one billion people are suffering from malnutrition, an increase of 100 million compared to last year.

About two thirds of the victims live in Asia and countries on the Pacific Rim, 265 million in southern Africa, 42 million in the Middle East and North Africa and 53 million in Latin America and the Caribbean. More than 15 million people in the industrial world are suffering from malnutrition. Major causes behind the increase are the global economic crisis and the increase in food prices, but a decrease in agricultural subsidies to poor countries also plays a role.

FAO Director Jacques Diouf said in a statement: "World leaders have reacted forcefully to the financial and economic crisis and succeeded in mobilizing billions of dollars in a short time period. The same strong action is needed now to combat hunger and poverty. We have the economic and technical means to make hunger disappear, what is missing is a stronger political will to eradicate hunger forever".

In the 1980s and 1990s substantial progress was made in the fight against hunger, for the most part as a result of investments in agriculture following the food crisis in the early 1970s.

Foto: Flickr / Filipe Moreira