Did You Know?

Hunger is the biggest threat to health. Last year, more people died due to hunger and malnutrition, than from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.  

800 million people in the world do not have enough food to eat and know what it is like to be permanently and chronically hungry. 

There are 300 million hungry children around the globe, one hundred million of whom do not attend school.  

Of the 100 million children who do not attend school, 60 million are girls.  

Some 6.5 million children in the world do not reach the age of five, each year, because hunger leaves them too weak to resist disease and opportunistic illnesses. 

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WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency: each year, WFP gives provides food to an average of 90 million poor people to meet their nutritional needs, including 61 million hungry children, in at least 80 of the world's poorest countries. 

At an average of just 19 US cents a day, WFP’s school feeding programmes are reaching some 16 million children globally, each year, nourishing their bodies as well as their minds and encouraging them to attend school.
 

WFP's School Feeding Programme in Ethiopia is currently assisting more than 600,000 children.  

The School Feeding Programme is implemented predominantly in Afar, Oromiya, Amhara, SNNP, Tigray and Somali regions where drought is recurrent.

WFP School Feeding enrolment rates have shown a 5% annual increase as research has clearly demonstrated that the provision of a hot, midday meal, is an incentive for children to go to school.

The drop-out rate from schools where WFP provides a feeding programme, is 10 per cent, less than the national school drop-out rate of, 19%. 

Children who attend WFP's School Feeding Programmes have shown a 40 per cent improvement in academic performance in just two years as children are better able to concentrate on their studies if they are not hungry.  

More than 4 million children in Ethiopia do not attend school due to social and economic challenges.


In 2006, over 800,000 people in 420 locations worldwide participated in WFP Walk the World events.

In 2005, participants raised enough funds to feed 70,000 school children on WFP school feeding programmes around the world.

This year Walk the World aims to raise over US$5 million for WFP’s global school feeding programmes which help children in developing countries grow into healthy and educated citizens.

 

WFP is committed to fighting the battle against hunger, and WFP actively encourages individuals to come out and do the same on 13 May.