Many children die from treatable diseases, namely: diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria and measles, according to the report by the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of malnourished people grew to 203.5 million people in 2000-02, from 170.4 million 10 years earlier, the report states. It notes hunger and malnutrition are among the main causes of poverty, illiteracy, disease and deaths in developing countries.
The U.N. food agency says the goal of reducing the number of the world's hungry by half by the year 2015, set by the World Food Summit in 1996 and reinforced by the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, remains distant but attainable.
"If each of the developing regions continues to reduce hunger at the current pace, only South America and the Caribbean will reach the Millennium Development Goal target," Jacques Diouf, the agency's director-general, writes in the report, the agency's annual update on world hunger.
The report states that providing children with adequate food is crucial for breaking the cycle of hunger and poverty.
The report's findings also suggest diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, which kill more than 6 million people a year, affect the hungry and poor the most.
