'Give fairer chance to world's 400m hungry children'

In a message on the occasion, Executive Director of the World Food Programme James Morris urged the developed world to give a fairer chance to the world's 400 million hungry children, many of whose lives are still blighted by malnutrition in the first few months of their birth.

"Hunger negatively affects the brain development of children, setting back their chances of success later on in life," he said.

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Citing a research conducted in Chile, Morris said children who suffered from malnutrition before the age of two tend to have smaller and less developed brains than those who were well nourished.

Morris further said other studies show that iron deficiency among children under two can be associated with poor performance once they reach school age.

He said, "The conclusion we can draw from this is the importance of integrating food for education programmes - school feeding - with early child survival and development interventions to achieve the greatest nutritional impact on children."

"And interventions against child hunger need to start even before the child is born - they need to start with the mother," he added.

Morris said in countries such as Niger, Chad or Bangladesh, where millions of children do not go to school at all, as the households they come from need every hand to make ends meet.

Morris mentioned that Official Development Assistance has been rising steadily for several years and now tops US$100 billion.

"We can afford to help, but we need to develop a food first policy - poverty cannot be eliminated until hunger and malnutrition are laid to rest. And one way to start would be to prevent hunger from cheating children of hope," he said.