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Source: Reuters
A lobby group has named New Zealand as one of the worst performers in a world league table of food and farm aid.
With the number of hungry people in the world topping 1 billion this year, ActionAid has released a report accusing most rich countries of reneging on pledges to increase aid to poor nations.
It also says recent pledges by the G8 to spend $US20 billion over the next three years to help poor countries feed themselves are proving elusive, and no clear timetable for action has been set.
ActionAid says with the exception of the top three donors - Luxembourg, Sweden and Norway - most rich countries do not fulfil even half of what is expected from them to reach the 2012 target.
The worst performers are Greece, Portugal, Italy, the United States and New Zealand.
The ActionAid report praises Brazil and China for their efforts to tackle hunger at home.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's Zero Hunger programme has cut child malnutrition by 73% and child deaths by 45%, while China has reduced the number of hungry people by 58 million in 10 years.
By contrast, 30 million more people have been added to the ranks of the hungry in India, despite a rise in per-capita income, since the mid-1990s, and 47% of children under the age of 6 are underweight.
