2011 Facts about Hunger & Poverty
Compiled by the Seeds of Hope Staff
• Hunger is the world’s number-one health risk. It kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. World Food Programme (WFP)
• One in seven people in the world will go to bed hungry tonight. WFP
• There are more hungry people in the world than the combined populations of USA, Canada and the European Union. WFP
• 925 million people do not have enough to eat, and 98 percent of them live in developing countries. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
• Asia and the Pacific region is home to over half the world’s population and nearly two-thirds of the world’s hungry people. FAO
• Women make up a little over half of the world’s population, but they account for over 60 percent of the world’s hungry. United Nations Economic and Social Council
• Sixty-five percent of the world’s hungry people live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia. FAO
• There are 583 million undernourished people in Asia, 236 million in sub-Saharan Africa, 51 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 15 million in the Near East and northern Africa. WFP
• The cost of hunger to developing countries is estimated to be 450 billion US dollars a year. WFP
• Undernutrition contributes to 5 million deaths of children under the age of 5 each year in developing countries. UNICEF
• One out of four children—roughly 146 million—in developing countries is underweight. UNICEF
• More than 70 percent of the world’s underweight children (aged five or less) live in just 10 countries, with more than 50 percent located in South Asia alone. UNICEF
• 10.9 million children under the age of 5 die in developing countries each year. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of the deaths. UNICEF
• Iron deficiency is the most prevalent form of malnutrition worldwide, affecting an estimated 2 billion people. Eradicating iron deficiency can improve national productivity levels by as much as 20 percent. World Health Organisation (WHO)
• Iodine deficiency is the greatest single cause of mental retardation and brain damage, affecting 1.9 billion people worldwide. It can easily be prevented by adding iodine to salt. UN Standing Committee on Nutrition
• It takes the World Food Programme 25 cents to feed a hungry schoolchild a cup of food with all the nutrition he or she needs for the whole day. WFP
• Fifty percent of all cultivated food in the world is grown by peasant farmers. Bread for the World
--from "A Hunger Beyond Food," the 2011 Sacred Seasons Hunger Emphasis packet (© Seeds of Hope Publishers, 2011)