ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopia National Disaster Risk Management Commission and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on Monday launched a global assembly on how to achieve zero Hunger.
The assembly held in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa was borne out of the realization of a need for a new way to look at and address problems in the world's food systems that inhibit efforts to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030.
It is estimated currently there are 820 million people chronically hungry around the world. About 125 million people are considered as being acutely hungry, meaning they lack access to enough food to live healthy lives.
One of the UN's Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) key aims is achieving zero hunger by 2030.
The assembly brought together national policy makers responsible for food and nutrition security, prominent food assistance practitioners, donors, philanthropic bodies and food security academics.
The Addis Ababa assembly will continue for a second day on Tuesday focusing on increasing awareness of the scope and depth of food assistance, on developing consensuses on priorities for policy reform, institutional innovation and investment toward transformative food assistance in different contexts.
In March 2019, the Ethiopian government and its humanitarian partners including the UN had appealed for 1.3 billion U.S. dollars to address food and non-food emergency needs of some 8.3 million people.
Ethiopia was spared significant climate-related calamities last year, but spikes in conflict-induced displacements, which led to an increase of internally displaced population, contributed to high humanitarian response needs in 2019.
