Hunger

A Filthy worn-out mattress on beer crates is the only item resembling a bed inside a dilapidated two-room structure shared by 15 members of a family living in Limpopo.

The family's plight was recently discovered by a land rights organisation, Nkuzi Development Association, which is now trying to seek intervention from various provincial government departments.

Non-governmental organisations have welcomed President Peter Mutharika’s declaration of Malawi as a state of national disaster describing it as a much-needed acknowledgement of the scale of the problem.
 
In a statement, they say the declaration should send a strong signal to donors to act quickly to the country’s disaster situation.
 
“The International community should act swiftly and decisively on government’s declaration of emergency where people are facing worsening hunger because of El Nino related drought and nationwide crop failures,” it explains.

The Children's Rights & Emergency Relief Organisation (UNICEF) says despite global progress on achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), unequal opportunities have left nearly 600 million children living in extreme poverty on less than US$1.25 a day.

The agency states that millions of the world's poorest children are denied a fair start in life and many more will be left behind unless they are put at the centre of new development goals for 2030.

Food Bank South Africa says although a third of South Africa's food ends up in landfill sites, about 11 million people in the country go hungry daily.
 
As World Hunger Day is commemorated on Thursday, 28 May 2015, the Food Bank has put out a challenge to citizens to fast to experience the brutality of hunger.
 

Africa, widely believed to rely on aid and donations from the developed world, is leading the fight against hunger and poverty on the continent.

This emerged at a high-level meeting, sought to discuss progress made in ending world hunger and poverty, co-hosted by The Hunger Project and the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg.

Poverty reduction, inequality and unemployment are expected to take a centre stage as the 14th session of the Africa-Nordic foreign ministers dialogue enters its second and final day at Mookgopong in Limpopo. 

The forum, which was established in the year 2000, aims to establish new perspectives for the friendship, cooperation and solidarity that exists between various African countries and the Nordic countries. 

After 20 years of democracy, 14 million citizens still go to bed hungry every night, while less than half the number of households in the country consistently have enough food to eat.

According to James Jonas, spokesperson for the Food Sovereignty Campaign, an organisation that provided the statistics, South Africans are starving partly because of exorbitant food prices.

Oxfam, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has announced its upcoming developmental strategies to ensure good health, water, sanitation and better livelihood among the needy and vulnerable in Africa.

Oxfam West African Regional Director, Aboubacry Tall, points out that the organisation has plans to ensure that the poor and needy had access to food, clothing, shelter, potable water, good health care and education in Ghana and Africa as a whole.

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) poor South Africans enjoy a better standard of living compared to their counterparts in many other countries.

The latest figures released by Statistics South Africa puts the country's extreme poverty line at R26 a day per person.

This is almost double the international line for extreme poverty, at about R14 per day. Lack of proper housing, malnutrition and hunger are some of the characteristics of poverty.

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) says the number of South Africans living in poverty has increased since 2010.

Statistician general, Pali Lehohla, states that in 2010, 20 percent of South Africa's population fell below the poverty line.

Lehohla, who maintains that poverty has increased to 21.5 percent in 2014, adds that, "The same is true for the austere poverty line, which stipulates the threshold below which one has to sacrifice some food to obtain some basic non-food items."