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Bonn. The number of starving people worldwide has reached a distressing record level. The United Nations are presenting the current figures in Rome today (release deadline 14.00 hours), and they conclude that there are now more people in the world suffering from hunger than ever before in history. More than one billion people do not have enough to eat each day.
"The 21st century is threatening to become the century of hunger ", warns Bärbel Dieckmann, Welthungerhilfe's Chairperson. For years, Welthungerhilfe has been asking for more support for rural development, and for agriculture to be placed at the centre of development cooperation. "Two out of three starving people live in rural areas - that's why aid has to start there".
Welthungerhilfe is demanding from politicians that rescue packages must not just be put together for the global economy, but also for saving the starving. "To fight hunger and poverty we are demanding just one percent of the cost of the economic stimulus programmes launched by the industrialised countries. But this money must be provided in addition to the development aid already agreed by governments" , Dieckmann stresses. "By means of help towards self-help, people must be empowered to feed themselves and their families."
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) must play an important role in the fight against hunger. We need to bring together all the national and international measures and political strategies in this area instead of creating new and expensive parallel structures.
Welthungerhilfe is one of the largest non-governmental aid agencies in Germany. It provides integrated aid: from rapid disaster aid to reconstruction and long-term development assistance projects in conjunction with local partner organisations based on the principle of help towards self-help. Since we were founded in 1962, we have provided 2 billion Euros worth of funding for more than 5,900 projects in 70 countries - for a world without hunger and poverty.
Further information is available at www.welthungerhilfe.de
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
A malnourished Somali child is wrapped in an American "Stars and Stripes" cloth at a therapeutic feeding center at Dagahaley camp in Dadaab in Kenya's northeastern province, June 8, 2009. Weeks ...
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