World Hunger On the Rise, CNNfn.

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Original Source: THE FLIPSIDE

GERRI WILLIS, CNNfn ANCHOR, THE FLIPSIDE: Back to our big story, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization released a report earlier this week and that showed a major setback in the fight against world hunger. In the second half of the 1990s, the number of hungry people rose by 18 million. That`s after the number fell 37 million at the beginning of the decade. Now the FAO says the problem is not so much a lack of food as it is a lack of political will. We`re joined now by Dr. Hartwig De Haen of the Food and Agriculture Organization and Kathleen Hunt, a U.N. representative for CARE International.

And I`d like to get started with - pardon me - Kathleen Hunt right here on the set. Kathleen, you`ve been on the ground with a lot of these issues. You`ve seen it up close. And I wanted to ask you where is this issue the worst, where is the problem the worst and why are the numbers getting bigger rather than smaller?

KATHLEEN HUNT, U.N. REPRESENTATIVE, CARE INTERNATIONAL: Well it`s a good question. I think that it`s worth putting this into the context of where we are today and where we were perhaps in the time of the huge emergency in Ethiopia about 15 years ago where we saw photographs of unbelievably emaciated people who had gotten to that state after a very, very long time, many months of neglect, many months of barriers to access to those populations. One of the upside fact of today is that we now have early warning mechanisms in place to help, with our people on the ground, to help alert the outside world to the needs that are building at a time when people are already vulnerable, they`re already the poorest people in that particular area. They`ve sold all their assets. And if the drought actually does produce absolutely no crops, those people are going to starve.

We were able, in two areas that are chronic problems, that`s Ethiopia and southern Africa, which we saw in quite dramatic conditions last year. We were able to avert the kind of really calamitous famine that might have occurred had it not been under the conditions of 20 years ago.

DARBY MULLANY, CNNfn ANCHOR, THE FLIPSIDE: And Dr. De Haen, let`s bring you into this. What, in your opinion, is the most...

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