Chile, China, Morocco make gains in ending hunger: FAO

The UN Food and Agricultural Organization(FAO) Secretary General Jose Graziano da Silva(R) awards a diploma to Chinese Deputy Agriculture Minister Chen Xiaohua during the awarding ceremony at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, on June 16,2014.[Xinhua/Xu Nizhi]

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Monday recognized Chile, China and Morocco "for moving closer to eradicating hunger."

The UN agency, in a statement, said that Chile, China and Morocco won recognition "for outstanding progress in fighting hunger", and thus "joined a growing group of countries to have reached international targets ahead of an end-of-2015 deadline," referring to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

"One year ago we celebrated the first 38 countries that had achieved the MDG target, three years in advance of the 2015 deadline," said FAO chief Jose Graziano da Silva during a ceremony at FAO's headquarters in Rome, "Now we come together to recognize three more countries for their efforts."

China and Morocco were praised for obtaining the first of the MDGs, while Chile, which had already reached its MDG-1, was hailed for meeting the more demanding target set by the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS).

The MDG-1 target calls for countries to reduce by half, by 2015, the proportion of their population that suffers from hunger, from the 1990 figures.

"The more ambitious WFS goal requires countries to at least halve the number of hungry people in the population before the end of 2015 compared to the level in 1990," the FAO said.