International Hunger Facts
World Hunger Statistics[i]
Also visit MAZON’s GATEway project for more on world hunger. The GATEway Project (Global Advocacy as a Tool for Engagement) expands the involvement of individual American Jews, Jewish congregations and Jewish religious leaders in global health and hunger issues as part of a broader, interfaith effort to fight poverty around the world. GATEway seeks to bring about increased advocacy on these issues and, ultimately, changes in related U.S. government policy.
THE WORLD
Population WORLD: 6,406,000,000
# of people undernourished: 848,000,000, 13%
% in Poverty: 1,400,000,000, 22%
Other Stats:
- At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.[1]
- Almost half the world (over three billion people) live on less than $2.50 a day.[2]
- 25.2% of the population lived on less than $1.25 a day in 2005, and 47% lived on less than $2.00 a day, including India, with a population of 75.6% living on less than $2.00 a day, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where 73% lived on less than $2.00 a day[3].
- The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.[4]
- China’s poverty rate fell from 85% to 16%, or by over 600 million people. China accounts for nearly all the world’s reduction in poverty- excluding China, poverty fell only by around 10% since 1981.[5]
Population DEVELOPED COUNTRIES: 1,264,000,000
# of people undernourished: 15,000,000
Population DEVELOPING WORLD: 5,141,000,000
# of people undernourished: 907,000,000, 16%
Other Stats:
- 907 million people in developing countries alone are hungry.[6]
- Based on enrolment data, about 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world were not in school in 2005; 57 per cent of them were girls. And these are regarded as optimistic numbers.[7]
- It estimates that 40% of the world’s 107 developing countries are “highly exposed” to the global crisis.[8]
- About 53 million people in developing countries will remain poor because of the world economic slowdown.[9]
…by Continent
ASIA and the PACIFIC
Population ASIA and the PACIFIC: 3,478,600,000
# of people undernourished: 541, 900,000, 16%
East Asia: 1,386,100,000
# of people undernourished: 131,800,000, 10%
Southeast Asia: 544,500,000
# of people undernourished: 86,900,000, 16%
South Asia: 1,468,400,000
# of people undernourished: 313,600,000, 21%
Central Asia: 57,000,000
# of people undernourished: 6,500,000, 11%
Western Asia: 15,900,000
# of people undernourished: 2,200,000, 14%
Other Stats:
- Asia and the Pacific region is home to over half the world’s population and nearly two thirds of the world’s hungry people.[10]
LATIN AMERICA and the CARIBBEAN
Population LATIN AMERICA and the CARIBBEAN: 544,200,000
# of people undernourished: 45,200,000, 8%
North and Central America: 141,900,000
# of people undernourished: 8,800,000, 6%
The Caribbean: 33,700,000
# of people undernourished: 7,600,000, 23%
South America: 368,600,000
# of people undernourished: 28,800,000, 8%
AFRICA
Population AFRICA: 1,118,300,000
# of people undernourished: 245,100,000
Near East Africa: 270,100,000
# of people undernourished: 28,400,000, 11%
North Africa: 149,900,000
# of people undernourished: 4,600,000
Sub-Saharan Africa: 698,300,000
# of people undernourished: 212,100,000, 30%
Central Africa: 93,100,000
# of people undernourished: 53,300,000, 57%
East Africa: 242,400,000
# of people undernourished: 86,000,000, 35%
Southern Africa: 99,200,000
# of people undernourished: 36,800,000, 37%
West Africa: 263,700,000
# of people undernourished: 36,000,000, 14%
Other Stats:
- In 2006, about 9.7 million children died before they reached their fifth birthday. Almost all of these deaths occurred in developing countries, 4/5 of them in sub- Saharan African and South Asia, the two regions that also suffer from the highest rates of hunger and malnutrition.[11]
- Sub-Saharan Africa will account for almost one-third of world poverty in 2015, up from one-fifth in 1990.[12]
- Sub-Saharan Africa counted 100 million more extremely poor people in 2005 than in 1990, and the poverty rate remained above 50 per cent.[13] Across the continent as a whole the number of poor people nearly doubled over the period of globalization, from 200 million in 1981 to 380 million in 2005.[14]
EUROPE
Population: 766,000,000
# of people undernourished:
East: 127,900,000
# of people undernourished: 3,900,000, 3%
West: 604,100,000
# of people undernourished:
Oceania: 34,000,000
# of people undernourished:
Other Stats:
- While almost no one lives under $2/day in Oceania, 72% of Australia’s Aborigines are living in poverty
- Australian Indigenous poverty ranks alongside countries as poor as Bangladesh where absolute poverty is real
- While New Zealand qualifies as one of the worlds wealthy countries, the GDP for New Zealand is $16,000 while neighboring Australia is $21,000 and the highest 20% of the population controls nearly 50% of the wealth
ISRAEL
Population:
# of people undernourished: 1,100,000 people, 22%
Of those Israeli citizens who are food insecure, 60% are Jewish, 20% are Arab, and 20% are new immigrants.
Other Stats:
- Hunger is on the rise in Israel. Throughout the country, increasing numbers of Israelis are relying on emergency food programs to meet their most basic nutritional needs.
- According to the National Insurance Institute, nearly 30% of Israeli children – approximately 690,000 – live below the national poverty line.
- Over 20% of Israel’s elderly live below the national poverty line.
Download the April 2004 report on poverty and income inequality in Israel by the National Insurance Institute of Israel.
CHILDREN:
- More than 70 percent of the world’s 146 million underweight children under age five years live in just 10 countries, with more than 50 per cent located in South Asia alone.[15]
- 10.9 million children under five die in developing countries each year. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of the deaths.[16]
- Every year, more than 20 million low birth weight babies are born weighing less than 2,500 grams (5.5 pounds), accounting for 17 percent of all births in developing countries- a rate more than double the level in industrialized countries. These babies risk dying in infancy, while those who survive often suffer lifelong physical and cognitive disabilities.[17]
- According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”[18]
- This is equivalent to:
- 1 child dying every 3.5 seconds
- 17-18 children dying every minute
- A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 1.5 weeks
- Over 9 million children dying every year
- Some 70 million children dying between 2000 and 2007
HIV/AIDS:
- In half of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, per capita economic growth is estimated to be falling by between 0.5 and 1.2 percent each year as a direct result of AIDS.[19]
- In the countries most heavily affected, HIV has reduced life expectancy by more than 20 years, slowed economic growth, and deepened household poverty.[20]
- Infected adults also leave behind children and elderly relatives, who have little means to provide for themselves. In 2003, 12 million children were newly orphaned in southern Africa, a number expected to rise to 18 million in 2010.[21]
- In 2006, 4.3 million people become infected with HIV and 2.9 million people died of AIDS.[22]
WATER[ii]
- Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
- Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day, with one in three living on less than $1 a day.
- More than 660 million people without sanitation live on less than $2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than $1 a day.
- Access to piped water into the household averages about 85% for the wealthiest 20% of the population, compared with 25% for the poorest 20%.
- 1.8 billion people, who have access to a water source within 1 kilometer, but not in their house or yard, consume around 20 liters per day. In the United Kingdom the average person uses more than 50 liters of water a day flushing toilets (where average daily water usage is about 150 liters a day. The highest average water use in the world is in the US, at 600 liters day.)
- Close to half of all people in developing countries suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.
[1] Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion,
The developing World is Poorer Than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty, World Bank, August 2008.
[2] World Bank Development Indicators, 2008
[3] Global Economic Prospects. World Bank, 2009
[4] 2007 Human Development Report (HDR), United Nations Development Program, November 27, 2007.
[5] World Bank Development Indicators, 2008
[6] The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008, FAO: Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations, 2008
[7] Millennium Development Goals Report, United Nations 2007
[8] “Global Financial Crisis Pushing Millions into Poverty in 2009 – STWR – Share The World’s Resources.” Share The World. Web. 19 Nov. 2009. <http://www.stwr.org/poverty-inequality/global-financial-crisis-pushing-millions-into-poverty-in-2009.html>.
[9] “Global Financial Crisis Pushing Millions into Poverty in 2009”, STWR.
[10] The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008, FAO: Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations, 2008
[11] State of the World’s Children 2008–Child Survival. UNICEF. January 2008.
[12] UNDP, Human Development Report 2007/2008: Fighting Climate Change, 2007, p. 25.
[13] United Nations, Millennium Development Goals Report 2009, New York, 2009, p. 7
[14] Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion. The Developing World Is Poorer Than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight against Poverty, The World Bank Development Research Group, August 2008.
[15] Progress for Children: A Report Card on Nutrition, UNICEF, 2006
[16] The State of the World’s Children, UNICEF, 2007
[17] Low Birthweight: Country, Regional and Global Estimates. World Health Organization. 2004.
[18] “Today, over 25,000 children died around the world — Global Issues.” Global Issues : social, political, economic and environmental issues that affect us all — Global Issues. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. <http://www.globalissues.org/article/715/today-over-25000-children-died-around-the-world>.
[19] Briefing Paper Hunger on the Rise: Soaring Prices Add 75 Million People to Global Hunger Rolls. Food and Agriculture Organization. September 2008.
[20] 2008 UNAIDS Global Report on the AIDS Epidemic
[21] Briefing Paper Hunger on the Rise: Soaring Prices Add 75 Million People to Global Hunger Rolls.2008
[22] Briefing Paper Hunger on the Rise: Soaring Prices Add 75 Million People to Global Hunger Rolls.2008
[i] Total populations and undernourished population statistics came from:
The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008. FAO: Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations, 2008.
[ii] Water statistics came from: 2006 United Nations Human Development Report, pp.6, 7, 35
