Despite it being the twenty-first c

Despite it being the twenty-first century, hunger and malnutrition still kill six million children a year, according to a newly published report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. More disturbing is the startling fact that there are more malnourished children in sub-Saharan Africa today than in the 1990s.

The UN agency says there were 170.4 million people on the verge of starvation in 1992, a number that grew to 203.5 million in 2002. The report states that hunger and malnutrition are the primary causes of poverty, illiteracy, disease and deaths in developing countries.

It also highlights how lacking the developed world has been in providing adequate aid to the poverty-stricken. Many children die from easily preventable diseases such as diarrhea, malaria and measles.