“Amid the 1,000 days of action for the eight anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), 38 countries have met part of the first MDG which calls on Member States to halve by 2015 the proportion of people who suffer from hunger,” according to a report from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the U.N. News Centre reports. “These countries are leading the way to a better future. They are proof that with strong political will, coordination and cooperation, it is possible to achieve rapid and lasting reductions in hunger,” FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said, according to the news service (6/12). “He also urged all countries to keep up the momentum and aim for the complete eradication of hunger,” New Europe reports, noting, “Even though globally hunger has declined over the past decade, 870 million people are still undernourished and millions of others suffer the consequences of vitamin and mineral deficiencies, including child stunting” (Gaydazhieva, 6/12).

“The countries that met the anti-hunger aspect of the first MDG include Algeria; Angola; Bangladesh; Benin; Brazil; Cambodia; Cameroon; Chile; Dominican Republic; Fiji; Honduras; Indonesia; Jordan; Malawi; Maldives; Niger; Nigeria; Panama; Togo; Uruguay,” the U.N. News Centre notes. In addition, 18 countries met “the more stringent World Food Summit Goal of reducing by half the absolute number of undernourished people between 1990-1992 and 2010-2012,” including “Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cuba, Djibouti, Georgia, Ghana, Guyana, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua, Peru, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Vietnam,” according to the news service (6/12).