Exciting news from the 2015 Food Insecurity Report published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: “The number of hungry people globally has declined from about one billion 25 years ago to about 795 million today.”

YAY for progress!!

While there are still 800 million people in the world who remain hungry, this report demonstrates that progress is being made, with 72 nations in the world achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving undernourishment by the year 2015.

Next step: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger for GOOD!  

Recap of the issue: What you need to know about the MDGs  

Target 1 of the Millennium Development Goals, a United Nations initiative to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by the year 2015, calls for halving the proportion of people whose income is less than $1.50 a day, achieving full and productive employment and decent work for all, and halving the proportion of people who who suffer from hunger between 1990 and 2015.

Moving forward, the Sustainable Development Goals will be introduced to the world in September 2015 as the MDGs will have expired. Think of the SDGs as phase II of the MDGs - essentially they are the road map for development for the next 15 years and will be the catalyst to end extreme poverty and hunger by the year 2030.  

The report explains that in developing nations, undernourishment - which measures the proportion of people who are unable to consume enough food for an active and healthy life - has successfully declined to 12.9 % of the population (down from 23.3%).

José Graziano da Silva, the director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, said “The near-achievement of the MDG hunger targets shows us that we can indeed eliminate the scourge of hunger in our lifetime.”

YES WE CAN!! The news that progress is being made is super awesome, but it’s also a great reminder of how far we still have left to go. We need to keep the momentum going and rally as global citizens to make sure that we achieve this goal by 2030. 2015 truly marks a pivotal year for our future and has the potential to change the course of history. Let’s do this!!