Ammon News - by Omar Obeidat/ Jordan Times

AMMAN –– Jordan was among 38 countries worldwide that were able to halve the proportion of hungry people between 1990-92 and 2010-2012, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said Wednesday.

FAO said in a statement, posted on its website, that these countries have met internationally established targets in the fight against hunger, Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number one, making successes ahead of a deadline set for 2015.

Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger is one of eight MDGs to be met by all the world’s countries by 2015. The other goals are: reducing child mortality, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, improving maternal health, combating diseases such as HIV/AIDS, ensuring environmental sustainability and creating global partnerships for development.

The MDGs are drawn from the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration adopted during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000.

“These countries are leading the way to a better future. They are proof that with strong political will, coordination and cooperation, it is possible to achieve rapid and lasting reductions in hunger,” FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva said in the statement.

Graziano urged all countries to keep up the momentum, aiming for the complete eradication of hunger, in keeping with the Zero Hunger Challenge launched in 2012 by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Globally, hunger has declined over the past decade, but 870 million people are still undernourished, and millions of others suffer the consequences of vitamin and mineral deficiencies, including child stunting, the FAO chief said.

According to official figures, the poverty rate among Jordanians stood at 14.4 per cent in 2010, while abject poverty was reduced from 6.6 per cent in 1992 to less than 1 per cent in 2010.

According to the FAO, 20 countries have satisfied MDG 1, to halve the proportion of hungry people. Their progress was measured between 1990-92 and 2010-2012, against benchmarks established by the international community at the UN General Assembly in 2000.

An additional 18 countries were congratulated for reaching both MDG 1 and the more stringent World Food Summit (WFS) goal, having reduced by half the absolute number of undernourished people between 1990-92 and 2010-2012.

The WFS goal was set in 1996, when 180 nations met at the FAO headquarters to discuss ways to end hunger.

The countries achieving MDG 1 alone were identified as Jordan, Algeria, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, Dominican Republic, Fiji, Honduras, Indonesia, Malawi, Maldives, Niger, Nigeria, Panama, Togo and Uruguay.

The countries achieving both MDG 1 and the WFS are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cuba, Djibouti, Georgia, Ghana, Guyana, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua, Peru, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Vietnam.

FAO said that the countries will be honoured in a high-level ceremony at the FAO headquarters on June 16, during the week-long meeting of the FAO Conference, the organisation’s highest governing body.

Millions still hungry

According to the State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012, the vast majority of the hungry, 852 million, live in developing countries –– around 15 per cent of their population –– while 16 million people are undernourished in developed countries.

Also, despite the overall downward trend and national successes, hunger has been on the rise in Africa in recent years, the statement said.