Some of the poorest countries in the world are making striking progress on reducing numbers of hungry people, while some wealthier countries are lagging behind, new findings from ActionAid show.

In a new study, released on World Food Day, ActionAid investigated the progress over 50 governments were making in reducing the number of hungry people in their countries.
The scorecard report shows that China, ranked second out of the developing countries, cut hunger numbers by 58 million in ten years through strong state support for smallholder farmers.
 
By contrast, in India, 30 million more people have joined the ranks of the hungry since the mid-nineties.

Brazil comes out top in the rankings of developing countries, having cut child malnutrition by 73 per cent in just six years.
Scoring 42 out of 100 and ranked 11 with ten million people going hungry, it’s clear the Kenyan government is simply not doing enough to feed its population.

The right to food is completely absent from the Kenyan constitution and legislation – a vital component as crop failures, a doubling of food prices over the past two years and post-electoral political unrest have left Kenya facing a food crisis of devastating proportions, with ten million people currently at risk of hunger.

Speaking from a rally in famine-stricken Kyuso District in Eastern Province of Kenya- one of the twenty organized by ActionAid globally – ActionAid Kenya’s Head of Policy and campaigns, Nixon Otieno said:
 
“It is a scandal that one in ten Kenyans needs emergency food aid, while we export fruit and vegetables to European supermarkets. Our government and donor partners must invest in poor farmers who grow food for local markets.”

Otieno also slammed rich countries for contributing to hunger by allowing climate change to worsen. “Climate-related droughts and floods are already causing food crises in my country and across Africa. Rich countries must cut their carbon emissions now.”

While some developed countries scored woefully. The United States scores just 8 out of 100 on hunger eradication, while Italy scores just 19, mostly because of their miserly aid to agriculture.
 
“It’s the role of the state and not the level of wealth, that determines progress on hunger,” said Anne Jellema, ActionAid’s policy director.
 
“Every six seconds a child dies from hunger, but this scandal could easily be ended if all governments took determined action.”