The biggest increases were found in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report says hunger has risen by more than sixty-five percent since nineteen ninety because of conflict and political insecurity.
And Caroline Hurford says Congo is not alone.
CAROLINE HURFORD: "Clearly conflict is a huge problem as far as the actual growing of produce and crops is concerned. People can't necessarily tend their fields if they are always being chased away by armed rebels."
A separate report says twenty-two countries have suffered from a hunger and food crisis for at least eight years. Twenty percent of the world's hungry live in these countries, most of which are in Africa.
That report is from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program. They say new policies are needed to deal with these long-term crises. Peter Smerdon at the World Food Program says emergency aid must include development assistance.
PETER SMERDON: "You have to do both things. You have to do both development and emergency assistance to keep people alive to reverse the situation. Otherwise, you're just going to be stuck in a protracted crisis, and have to keep trying to put out the fire. But you're not actually changing the structure of the crisis at all."
Both reports were released ahead of World Food Day this past Saturday.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Mario Ritter.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25