Iran is among 72 countries that have achieved the UN Millennium Development target of halving proportion of the chronically undernourished, FAO Report says

The number of hungry people in the world has dropped to 795 million – 216 million fewer than in 1990-92 – or around one person out of every nine, according to the latest edition of the annual hunger report "The State of Food Insecurity in the World (SOFI) 2015" published by FAO.

In developing regions, the prevalence of undernourishment - which measures the proportion of people who are unable to consume enough food for an active and healthy life – has declined to 12.9 percent of the population, down from 23.3 percent a quarter of a century ago reports SOFI 2015, published today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

A majority – 72 out of 129 – of the countries monitored by FAO including the Islamic Republic of Iran have achieved the Millennium Development Goal target of halving the prevalence of undernourishment by 2015. Twenty nine countries have met the more ambitious goal set by at the World Food Summit in 1996, whereby governments committed to halving the absolute number of undernourished people by 2015.

"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. That goal should be mainstreamed into all policy interventions and at the heart of the new sustainable development agenda to be established this year," said the FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.

In December of last year, FAO had bestowed an Award onto the Islamic Republic of Iran for the significant progress attained in reducing the number of people suffering from malnutrition in the country and achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG1) target.

"The notable achievement realized by the Islamic Republic of Iran within the framework of MDG1 manifests the effectiveness of the policies and measures pursed by the country over the past two decades" said the FAO Representative to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Serge Nakouzi.

Given the governments commitment to address the issues of food insecurity and alleviating poverty and in view of the broad capabilities residing within the country, Iran can certainly make substantive strides towards the eradication of hunger and can lead by setting the example of how a concerted and integrated approach by all of national stakeholders can embed sustainable food security and make hunger a scourge of the past, Nakouzi added.

According to FAO report, progress towards fully achieving the 2015 food security targets was hampered in recent years by challenging global economic conditions.
Extreme weather events, natural disasters, political instability and civil strife have all impeded progress – 24 African countries currently face food crises, twice as many as in 1990; around one of every five of the world's undernourished lives in crisis environments characterized by weak governance and acute vulnerability to death and disease.

SOFI 2015 notes that over the past 30 years crises have evolved from catastrophic, short-term, acute and highly visible events to protracted situations, due to a combination of factors, especially natural disasters and conflicts, with climate change, financial and price crises frequently among the exacerbating factors.

Hunger rates in countries enduring protracted crises are more than three times higher than elsewhere. In 2012 some 366 million people were living in this kind situation – of whom 129 million were undernourished – 19 percent of all food-insecure people on the planet.
Yet, alongside these challenges, the world population has grown by 1.9 billion since 1990, making reductions of the number of hungry people all the more striking, the report says.