WASHINGTON: After falling during the first half of the 1990s, the number of hungry people in the world, particularly in developing countries, is once again on the rise, say latest estimates by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Nearly 800 million people are now thought to go to bed hungry each night throughout the developing world and another 34 million in the mainly East European and Central Asian countries of the former Soviet Union, according to the FAO’s latest ‘State of Food Insecurity in the World’, released here on Tuesday on the eve of the US national feast day, Thanksgiving.

If current trends continue, adds the report, it will be impossible for the world to meet or even come close to the target set by the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS) to reduce the number of hungry to 400 million by 2015.

“FAO’s latest estimates signal a setback in the war against hunger” says the document. “The WSF goal of reducing the number of undernourished people by half by the year 2015 can now be reached only if annual reductions can be accelerated to 26 million (people) per year, more than 12 times the pace of 2.1 million per year achieved to date.”

The 36-page report emphasizes that reliable statistics on hunger are often difficult to obtain, so the UN agency is forced to extrapolate from available data and from studies by researchers and relief groups in specific areas. The statistics are therefore estimates.

The study uses the WFS baseline period 1990-92 compared to the most recent period for which statistics are available, 1999-2001. While approximately 861 million people were hungry in the prior period, 842 million people were hungry in the latest, a negligible decline over a decade.

The decline was more significant in percentage terms due to population growth. In 1990-92, for example, the number of hungry people in the developing world was estimated at 816.6 million, compared to 797.9 million in 1999-2001. While the former figure represented 20 per cent of all people living in developing countries, the latter accounted for 17 per cent of the total population.

But what was particularly worrisome in the new figures was the trend line. While the number of the world’s hungry fell by 37 million between 1990-92 and 1995-7, it rose by 18 million during the latter half of the decade, according to the report.

At the regional level, the number of undernourished fell only in Asia and the Pacific and in Latin America and the Caribbean. The sharpest rises were in sub-Saharan Africa, in part due to poor harvests and civil conflict in some countries, and in the Near East and North Africa.

China itself made a major contribution to the decline, reducing the number of hungry people there by 58 million over the decade, although progress has slowed in the more recent years.

The other Asian giant, India, on the other hand, has stagnated during the same period. After seeing a decline of 20 million over the first five years, the number of hungry people there has risen by 19 million since, to 214 million, or one in every five citizens.

Only 19 developing countries experienced a decrease over the entire 10-year period. They included Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Peru, Brazil, Ghana and Namibia, as well as China.

But 26 other countries — led by war-torn nations like Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Liberia, as well as others including Yemen, the Philippines, Kenya and Iraq — suffered a rise in the number of undernourished over the same period.

Another 17 countries experienced a decrease, followed by an increase in the number of hungry people, including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria and two other war-ravaged countries, Colombia and Sudan.

On the more positive side, 22 countries experienced an increase followed by a decrease, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Haiti, Nicaragua, Mozambique and Uganda.

As for “countries in transition”, most Baltic and East European countries have made gains, but many former Soviet states saw significant increases in hunger over the decade as agricultural production and marketing systems broke down and disrupted trade and exchange relations led to losses in the money needed to import food.

The proportion of malnourished now ranges from 20 to 34 per cent in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Georgia, while in Armenia and Tajikistan the proportion is estimated at greater than 35 per cent.

In addition to civil conflict, droughts and other extreme weather conditions and the HIV/AIDS epidemic are contributing significantly to increases in hunger in sub-Saharan Africa.

Countries with HIV prevalence greater than five per cent in 1991 have seen hunger rates skyrocket from just over 25 per cent in 1980 to about 37 per cent in 1999-2001.

For countries in the region where HIV prevalence was less than five per cent in 1991, on the other hand, the percentage of hungry people has dropped steadily from about 37 per cent almost 25 years ago to 26 per cent.

The southern African food crisis of the past year, which was touched off by prolonged drought, showed that “hunger cannot be combated effectively in regions ravaged by AIDS, unless interventions address the particular needs of AIDS-affected households and incorporate measures both to prevent and to mitigate the spread of HIV/AIDS”, the report said.

In general, it added, countries that have succeeded in reducing hunger were those that enjoyed more rapid economic growth, particularly in agriculture; slower population growth; lower levels of HIV infection; and a higher ranking in the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Index (HDI).

FAO is urging governments to adopt anti-hunger policies that include more resources for agricultural production, emergency interventions early in periods of food shortages or crop failures, a focus on providing jobs for the poor and agrarian reform.

It praised Brazil’s ‘Zero Hunger Project’ (Projeto Fome Zero) as particularly effective.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.

THE two-Eid phenomenon has now gone a bit too far. In the past, it used to be the religious leaders of Charsadda and Peshawar to decide the sighting of Shawwal moon. Now there is a whole lot of them deciding Eidul Fitr in every district of the NWFP.

The government should be happy, for, good governance meant taking decision-making to the grassroots level. And this is what has happened with Eid also — the decision to verify evidence of moon-sighting has also gone to the grassroots.

There were times when the federal government-appointed Central Ruet-i-Hilal used to decide and faithful all over the country would  follow. It also diversified in the provincial Ruet-I-Hilal, asserting itself and deciding for the people of the NWFP when to commence Ramazan and when to celebrate the Eid. Now we have the district Ruet-i-Hilal and the town Ruet-i-Hilal and the mosque Ruet-i-Hilal. The mechanism is working. Welcome to the devolution of Ruet-i-Hilal to the grassroots.

Nobody should feel any qualms now. This is what we wanted in the first place: the state unable to exert and enforce its decisions, the provinces refusing to toe the line and the local tier taking its own decisions.

Nowhere in the Muslim world would have faced such an awkward and embarrassingly funny situation. We have become the butt of jokes.

In the century, when adverts are being put out for people to buy a piece of land on the moon, we are fighting among ourselves on whether the moon has appeared or not.

There had been the two-Eid phenomenon in the past as well but it had never become so bizarre as it happened this time.  The chairman of the Central Ruet-i-Hilal announced the Ramazan moon had not been sighted hence the Ramazan would commence on such and such date. Lo and behold, two members of the same committee, who were sitting while the chairman Prof Munibur Rehman was making the announcement, differed and convened their own meeting later. The chairman should not have rushed the matter, they said, we should have waited for evidence to come from far-flung areas. Not an unreasonable argument one would say.

A raft of statements from religious scholars of all shades followed this through out the whole month. Prof Munibur Rehman enjoyed the limelight, so did all those who sided with one faction or the other.

Undeterred and unapologetic, our local clerics stuck to their guns insisting their decision to start Ramazan one day ahead of the rest of Pakistan was correct. A religious leader from Charsadda, known for issuing such verdicts, said he would never cease the authority enjoyed by his father since 1922. Another said its been in the family for generation.

Mufti Munibur Rehman, on the other hand, insisted that his decision regarding the moon sighting was right and that ulema from the NWFP had tried to pressure him into accepting their verdict.

What was a purely religious issue, unfortunately, has turned into a kind of confrontation between the Central and Provincial Ruet-i-Hilal Committees which, in its wake, has generated a great deal of acrimony and bad blood. A religious issue becoming a political issue.

Consider the following statements that came during television debate on the issue, some of which were very offensive and inappropriate to say the least.

The chairman of the Central Ruet-i-Hilal during a discussion on a private television channel remarked that ulema from the NWFP belonged to the ‘Stone Age’ and no matter how much science and technology progressed their decision would remain the same. A caller from Karachi wondered whether people from the NWFP lived on K-2 to sight the moon so easily.

The decision of the Central Ruet-i-Hilal looked correct. It was a decision based more on principle than any other thing, knowing fully, that its decisions in the past had invariably turned out to be wrong on many occasions.

One can understand the predicament for having so stubbornly stuck to its decision. It could not have convened its meeting on Sunday as sighting moon and declaring Eid on Monday would have meant 28 days of fasting.

Avoiding  a debate and endless  argument  on who is right and who is wrong, suffice it to say that the size and shape of Shawwal moon was a enough evidence. There was no need for the Ruet-i-Hilal to even hold a meeting and declare Eid on Wednesday. The moon was quite visible.

It is high time, the government gives the whole thing a serious thought and works out a strategy to deal with this devisive issue once and for all.