Study rates Dominican Republic’s hunger ‘moderate’: Efe

Berlin.- The world’s level of hunger remainshigh despite progress since 2000, says the annual World Hunger Index (GHI)released Tuesday in Berlin, in which Dominican Republic’s figures as"moderate," Efe reports.

The report says the level of hunger hasfallen by 29% in developing countries since 2000, but there are still at least795 million hungry people in the world.

The study conducted jointly by the NGOWelthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide, and the Institute on Food Policy Studies,notes that to achieve the goal of eliminating hunger completely by 2030, the UNcommissioner for the fight against hunger, David Nabarro, recommends, in anessay accompanying the document, to identify the most critical areas and themost affected groups.

According to Nabarro, there’s also a need toestablish differences within the same country to identify particularly affectedareas.

In the Index’s four parameters figure the proportionof the population that doesn’t get enough calories, children with less weight correspondingto size, children under five with a smaller size than normal and the infantmortality rate.

According to the study, the level of hungeris "alarming" in 50 countries, and seven of them are sub-Saharan nations.

In Latin America, the GHI rates hunger inGuatemala as "serious," one step below "alarming," with DominicanRepublic, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay as"moderate" and "low" in the rest of the countries.