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

854 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 some 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. 

WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency: each year, WFP gives food to an average of 70  million poor people to meet their nutritional needs in some 80 of the world's poorest countries.

An estimated 59 million children go to school hungry in developing countries, 23 million of whom live in Africa.

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.

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

WFP's Food for Education Programme in Ethiopia currently has resources to assist 414,000 children.  

The Food for Education Programme is implemented predominantly in Afar, Oromiya, Amhara, SNNP, Tigray and Somali regions where drought is recurrent.

WFP’s school 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 school 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 Food for Education Programmes have shown a 40 per cent improvement in academic performance in just two years, as they are better able to concentrate on their studies if they are not hungry.

WFP is committed to fighting the battle against hunger and WFP actively encourages individuals to come out and do the same on SUNDAY JUNE 1^st 2008.