Halving hunger: it can be done

Abstract

In 2002, the UN Millennium Project's Task Force on Hunger was established for the purpose of developing a plan to reduce world hunger by 50 percent by the year 2015, and hopefully to eliminate it altogether. This report discusses the causes and consequences of hunger, and summarizes the task force's seven recommendations of actions and interventions necessary to reduce the problem. These include: 1)global political action to implement strategies that reduce poverty and hunger; 2) reform national policies in developing countries to promote poverty and hunger reduction; to create an environment that enables women and the poor to become more productive, and to strengthen agricultural research and trade; 3) help smallholder farmers to increase their agricultural productivity; 4) improve nutrition of those vulnerable to malnourishment and malnutrition, especially pregnant and lactating mothers, and infants and children; 5) establish "safety nets" such as local and national disaster warning systems, emergency response systems, and food banks to reduce the vulnerability to food insecurity that occurs due to natural disasters, catastrophic events, political unrest, etc.; 6) strengthen the market system infrastructure and improve access by the poor to market information, markets for selling products and buying inputs, credit and other financial services, and employment and income opportunities outside of farming; 7) reverse environmental and resource degradation, and conserve the natural resources necessary for food security.