Five West African nations lead the way in reducing hunger

Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, The Gambia and Nigeria have achieved among the largest reductions in undernourishment worldwide during the 1990s, FAO reported in the first edition of ‘The State of Food Insecurity in the World’, issued on Thursday. The number of undernourished people in the developing world fell from 830 million to 790 million between 1990/1992 and 1995/1997, the report said. However, this progress in combating hunger has been uneven. While the number of people who are chronically undernourished decreased by 100 million in 37 countries, including the West African five, it increased by almost 60 million in the rest of the developing world, FAO says. Ghana had the best record in reducing hunger in West Africa “thanks to a strong economy and dramatic increases in yield of staple food crops.” However, in Central, East and Southern Africa, the proportion and numbers of undernourished people generally increased. Much of the data used in the report was compiled through the Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems (FIVIMS). This is a new programme for improving and linking national and global information systems that gather and analyse data ranging from health and climate to markets and household food security.