Urchman Foundation

Every year, authors, journalists, teachers, researchers, school children and students ask us for statistics about hunger and malnutrition. To help answer these questions, we've compiled a list of useful facts and figures on world hunger. Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That's about one in nine people on earth. The vast majority of the world's hungry people live in developing countries, where 12.9 percent of the population is undernourished. Asia is the continent with the most hungry people - two thirds of the total. The percentage in southern Asia has fallen in recent years but in western Asia it has increased slightly. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence (percentage of population) of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished. Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five - 3.1 million children each year. One out of six children -- roughly 100 million -- in developing countries is underweight. One in four of the world's children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three. If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million. 66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone. WFP calculates that US$3.2 billion is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school age children.