Zimbabwe leads this sorry category by a wide margin.
One in three Africans suffers from malnutrition: UN
Fri Jul 1,11:29 AM ET
ROME (AFP) - One out of three Africans suffers from malnutrition and a total of 852 million people in the world suffer from hunger.
A World Food Program (WFP) report highlighted the plight of starving Africans and said that the financial contributions necessary for alleviating the continent's hunger problems were lacking.
The program said they had received less than 20 percent, or 67 million dollars (55 million euros), of the 405 million dollars it needs for its operations in southern Africa from now until 2006.
"The WFP aims to feed 26 million victims of food crises on the continent this year because of drought, conflict,
HIV/
AIDS, locust infestations and economic problems," the report said Friday.
"So far it has barely half the contributions it needs to keep these people alive and build better lives."
The report came just days before next week's G8 summit of leaders of the most industrialized countries, where African poverty is set to have a place on the agenda.
Activists have planned a string of worldwide concerts, protests and rallies in the build-up to the July 6-8 G8 summit in Scotland, designed to force world leaders to give the issue priority and to provoke action on debt, trade and aid in Africa.
The WFP report said the number of people in need of emergency food aid this year had rapidly risen from 3.5 million to 8.3 million in seven southern Africa countries, mainly because of drought.
It gave hunger figures as four million in Zimbabwe, 1.6 million in Malawi, 1.2 million in Zambia, 900,000 in Mozambique, 245,000 in Lesotho, 230,000 in Swaziland and 60,000 in Namibia.
In addition, the triple threat of HIV/AIDS, food insecurity and weakening capacity for service delivery is leaving whole societies much more vulnerable to external shocks.
Other African hunger hotspots mentioned in the report included Ethiopia, Sudan,
Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and Niger.
The WFP is the largest UN humanitarian agency and it feeds around 90 million people per year, of which 56 million are children. |
