The 15th of June is the global day of action against hunger and is an opportunity to learn more about the challenges concerning food insecurity and malnutrition globally. Today, almost 870 million people worldwide are chronically undernourished and every day, 10,000 women and children under 5 years old die due to malnutrition.

Source: Text & Image: Acted

Why care about hunger?
Because the right to food is a basic human right.   In a world of plenty, 805 million people, one in nine worldwide, live with chronic hunger. The costs of hunger and malnutrition fall heavily on the most vulnerable.

60% of the hungry in the world are women.
Almost 5 million children under the age of 5 die of malnutrition-related causes every year.
4 in 10 children in poor countries are malnourished damaging their bodies and brains.
Every human being has a fundamental right to be free from hunger and the right to adequate food. The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child has the physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.

Because we can end hunger in our lifetime. It’s possible. The world produces enough food to feed every person on the planet. In September 2000, world leaders signed a commitment to achieve eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015. MDG #1 is eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and includes three targets.  Since then:

Forty countries have already achieved the first target, to halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015.
In addition, over the past 20 years, the likelihood of a child dying before age five has been nearly cut in half, which means about 17,000 children are saved every day. 
Extreme poverty rates have also been cut in half since 1990.
The challenge is significant, but these results show us that when we focus our attention, we can make big strides.

Source: Text: World Food Day