World Food Day

According to the 2008 Global Hunger Index just released by the International Food Policy Research Institute, 33 countries in the world have "alarming or extremely alarming" levels of child mortality, child malnutrition and other hunger-related health problems. (See interactive map below.) But a new international poll suggests that the public will exists to end the scourge of hunger. VOA's Adam Phillips reports.

Despite improvements in the global economy and living standards in many countries in recent years, more than 900 million people - most of them in developing countries - continue to experience chronic hunger. In recognition of this crisis, leaders from more than 100 nations met at the United Nations in 2000 and agreed to eight so-called Millennium Development Goals. Among them was a commitment to halve the number of people in the world who live on $1 a day or less by the year 2015.

Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said in a statement in Geneva that the whole system of food production needed to be radically overhauled to ensure an equitable outcome.

"The violation on a daily basis of the right to food for hundreds of millions of people worldwide has its roots in an outdated and inadequate production system, rather than in the actual quantity of food available," he said.

Asked whether the economic crisis has had any immediate effects on the food situation, Benson says, "From the financial crisis, no, not yet… We are warned it will be a couple of weeks, couple of months, before we start seeing the effects, as the reduced demand in the developed world translates into reduced demand for the products of the developing world, like Uganda. So, this may be a slow onset sort of crisis in terms of the food insecurity."