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Jordan and the World Celebrate World Food Day
Jordan and the World Celebrate World Food Day
Wednesday, 16 October 2019

On Wednesday, Jordan and the world celebrate World Food Day that is celebrated every year on October16th. This day is an opportunity to show commitment to achieving sustainable development and ending hunger by 2030.

World Food Day aims to increase the awareness and international work for the benefit of those who are suffering from hunger and other forms of malnutrition, ensure providing food security and healthy nutrition, and raise awareness regarding the importance of following healthy diets that benefit the body.  

In a special press release on this occasion, the Higher Population Council showed that the percentage of malnutrition in Jordan in 2017 was 12%, according to the World Bank statistics. Moreover, the Population and Family Health Survey results (2017-2018) showed that 32% of children aged between (6- 59 months) and 43% of women between (15- 49 years) suffer from anemia, 54% of women suffer from overweight and obesity, and 3% suffer from excessive thinness.

HPC emphasized that its interest in this subject comes within its polices to enhance the population’s qualitative characteristics and their impact on the development process in its economic, social, and environmental dimensions, its commitment to achieving the sustainable development objectives, especially the second one related to” Zero hunger”, and achieving justice and equality of opportunity in the society, all in light of the challenges that Jordan faces regarding the increasing rate of population growth on the one hand, and limited resources on the other. HPC further showed that this day is a new opportunity to change unhealthy nutritional habits, achieve development goals and new sustainable development plans that aim to create a society free of poverty and hunger, as well as stress the importance of integrating the population dimension and taking it into consideration in polices and national and sectoral strategies.  

The importance of this day lies in having more than 821 million people in the world “one for every nine people” who are hungry and don’t have enough food in 2018. Also, 672 million people suffer from obesity and 1.9 billion from being overweight according to the Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform, which emphasizes the sizable challenge in achieving the second goal of sustainable development: Ending hunger by 2030.    

The report of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, International Fund for Agricultural Development, UNICEF, and World Food Programme indicate that the chronic undernutrition in the world comes as a result of many factors including conflicts, climate change, and economic recession. Furthermore, unhealthy lifestyles and rapid increases in obesity levels cause deterioration in what has been achieved in fighting hunger and malnutrition.