Some 842 million people, or roughly one in eight, suffered from chronic hunger in 2011-13, not getting enough food to lead active and healthy lives according to a report released by the United Nations food agencies.

The number is down from 868 million reported for the 2010-12 period, according to the “State of Food Insecurity in the World (SOFI 2013)”, published every year jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

The vast majority of hungry people live in developing regions, while 15.7 million live in developed countries. The report, which was made available to the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday by Charmaine Wilkerson of the FAO Media Relations in Rome, said continued economic growth in developing countries has improved incomes and access to food.

It said recent pick-up in agricultural productivity growth, supported by increased public investment and renewed interest of private investors in agriculture, has improved food availability.

“In addition, in some countries, remittances from migrants are playing a role in reducing poverty, leading to better diets and progress in food security. They can also contribute to boosting productive investments by smallholder farmers,” it said.

The report said despite the progress made worldwide, marked differences in hunger reduction persist. Adding that Sub-Saharan Africa has made only modest progress in recent years and remains the region with the highest prevalence of undernourishment, with one in four people (24.8 per cent) estimated to be hungry.

It said since 1990-92, the total number of undernourished in developing countries has fallen by 17 per cent from 995.5 million to 826.6 million. While uneven, the report stresses that developing regions as a whole have made significant progress towards reaching the target of halving the proportion of hungry people by 2015.

It noted that this target was agreed internationally as part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG); if the average annual decline since 1990 continues to 2015, the prevalence of undernourishment will reach a level close to the MDG hunger target.

It said a more ambitious target set at the 1996 World Food Summit, to halve the number of hungry people by 2015, remains out of reach at global level, even though 22 countries had already met it by the end of 2012.

FAO, IFAD and WFP urged countries "to make considerable and immediate additional efforts" to meet the MDG and WFS targets.