MOSCOW, October 14 (RIA Novosti) - The number of undernourished people in the world has exceeded one billion this year due to the economic crisis, UN food agencies said on Wednesday.
An annual report on global food security published by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme said the economic downturn had led to declines in foreign aid and investment in poor countries, causing a spike in world hunger, the worst in decades.
"FAO estimates that 1.02 billion people are undernourished worldwide in 2009," the report said. "This represents more hungry people than at any time since 1970 and a worsening of the unsatisfactory trends that were present even before the economic crisis."
"With the onset of these crises, however, the number of hungry people in the world increased sharply," the agencies said.
"No nation is immune and, as usual, it is the poorest countries - and the poorest people - that are suffering the most," FAO head Jacques Diouf and WFP chief Josette Sheeran said in the report.
The report was published ahead of World Food Day on Friday, capping a week of talks among experts across the globe focusing on food shortage concerns up to 2050, when the global population is predicted to reach 9.1 billion.
Among the most affected areas are the Asia-Pacific region (642 million undernourished), Sub-Saharan Africa (265 million), Latin America (53 million), the Middle East and Northern Africa (42 million). Some 15 million undernourished people live in developed countries, the report said.
