A/HRC/16/40 III. Discrimination in the context of the right to food A. Discrimination in terms of regions, markets, prices, subsidies, resources and infrastructure services 1. Regional inequalities and the increasing marginalization of the most vulnerable groups 13. There is little, if any, improvement in the situation of the poorest regions of the world in terms of poverty and hunger reduction. Overall, prior to the economic and food crisis peaking in 2008, the number of people in developing regions living in extreme poverty, on less then $1.25 a day at 2005 prices, decreased from 1.8 billion in 1990 to 1.4 billion in 2005. Once the data have been disaggregated by region, this encouraging development reveals less ground for optimism. The decline in the number of people living in extreme poverty is largely attributable to China.10 More than half of the population of sub-Saharan Africa remains below the poverty line. Similarly, according to the United Nations report on the Millennium Development Goals for 2009, Southern Asia, while registering certain progress, still has 39 per cent of its population living in extreme poverty. 14. Although an improvement over the record hunger statistics of 2009, the figure for 2010 remains staggering: a total of 925 million people are still estimated as undernourished today.11 The Asia and Pacific region had the largest number of hungry people (578 million), followed by sub-Saharan Africa (239 million).12 The latter had the largest prevalence of undernourishment relative to its population size (30 per cent).13 According to the abovementioned report on the Millennium Development Goals, as an effect of the escalating food prices, which peaked in 2008, four regions of the world have seen percentage increases in undernourishment in relation to the period 2004-2006: sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, Southern Asia (India excluded) and Eastern Asia. 15. A new spike in food prices has been witnessed since July 2010. The FAO Food Price Index has reached its highest level since September 2008 and prices of wheat on international markets have increased by 70 per cent since 2009. Food riots, such as the one in Mozambique in the third quarter of 2010, illustrate food insecurity and the utter despair of people.14 16. The environmental crisis cannot be neglected from any discussion relating to food security. Climate change is expected to affect the poorest regions with the highest level of chronic hunger worst.15 It is asserted that climate change and biofuel development will affect the four dimensions of food security - availability, accessibility, stability and utilization - in particular in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.16 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 6 World Bank / International Monetary Fund, Global Monitoring Report 2009: A Development Emergency (Washington, D.C.), p. 19. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2010 (Rome, 2010), p. 4. Ibid, p. 9. Ibid, p. 10. See also FAO, “More people than ever are victims of hunger”, background note, 2009. Food riots: “Predictable crisis, unprepared governments”- UN expert, press release, Geneva, 7 September 2010; see also www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/FoodPricesIndex/en/. FAO, “2050: Climate change will worsen the plight of the poor”, 30 September 2009. Available from www.fao.org/news/story/0/item/35831/icode/en/. FAO, High-level Expert Forum: How to Feed the World in 2050, Climate change and bioenergy challenges for food and agriculture, Rome, 12-13 October 2009.