UN finds 486 million in Asia still hungry, progress stalled

Despite rapid economic growth, the Asia-Pacific region has nearly a half billion people who go hungry as progress stalls in improving food security and basic living conditions, a United Nations report said Friday.

Even in relatively well-to-do cities like Bangkok and the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, poor families cannot afford enough good food for their children, often with devastating long-term consequences for their health and future productivity, says the report compiled by the Food and Agricultural Organisation and three other UN agencies.

In Bangkok, more than a third of children were not receiving an adequate diet as of 2017, the report said.

In Pakistan only 4 per cent of children were getting a "minimally acceptable diet," it said, citing a government survey.

To be able to meet a goal of reaching zero hunger in the region by 2030, 110,000 people need to be lifted out of hunger and malnutrition every single day, said the FAO's regional director-general, Kundhavi Kadiresan.

"After all those years of gains in fighting hunger and malnutrition in Asia and the Pacific we now find ourselves at a virtual standstill," she said.

"We have to pick up the pace."