There are more hungry people in the world today than ever before, according to the FAO.
With this in mind, this year’s theme for World Food Day, celebrated every year since 1979 on October 16, is: United against Hunger.
The theme has been chosen to recognize the efforts made in the fight against world hunger at national, regional and international levels.
The aim of the Day, that marks the date of funding of FAO in 1945, is to raise public awareness on the world food problem and to strengthen solidarity in the struggle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty.
In 2009, on the eve of the hunger summit, FAO launched an online petition to reflect the moral outrage of the situation. The “1 billion hungry project” reaches out to people through online social media to invite them to sign the anti-hunger petition at www.1billionhungry.org.
Collaboration among international organizations, particularly the Rome-based United Nations agencies [Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), World Food Programme (WFP)] plays a key strategic role in directing global efforts to reach Millennium Development Goal 1 – Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger – which calls for halving the hungry people in the world by 2015.
In 2009, the critical threshold of one billion hungry people in the world was reached in part due to increasing food prices and to the financial crisis.
