AAHM Coordinator, Ms Marie-Christine Laporte, said: “The Alliance Against Hunger and Malnutrition is a forward-thinking global initiative that links like-minded organizations and institutions that are involved in the fight against hunger and malnutrition.
"The Alliance Against Hunger and Malnutrition provides a unique middle ground – a multi-stakeholder platform and forum where those who run top-down and bottom-up development initiatives can meet in a neutral and open environment, share ideas, learn from each other’s successes and lessons, and establish networks for supportive communication within countries, across national borders or with countries in distant parts of the world. We are very pleased to have a dedicated non-governmental aquaculture organization (NGO) to assist our partners and through them a devoted and effective aquaculture ‘hub’.”
The collaboration with AAHM was discussed during AwF’s Executive Director, Roy Palmer, visit to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) offices in Rome, Italy.
Mr Palmer said: “The Alliance Against Hunger and Malnutrition currently supports National Alliances in 60 countries on four continents with combined populations of more than a billion people and we believe that the skills, knowledge and experience of our aquaculture specialists and volunteers can have a great impact in adding another dimension to the food equation for the various partners. We are keen to build working relationships and, through that unity, increase the chances of success in the aim to eliminate hunger and malnutrition. We are believers that aquaculture can make a difference.”
He added: “Around 842 million people in 2011–13, or around one in eight people in the world, were estimated to be suffering from chronic hunger, regularly not getting enough food to conduct an active life. Almost all the hungry people, 852 million, live in developing countries, representing 15 per cent of the population of developing counties.
"There are 16 million people undernourished in developed countries (FAO 2012). In Africa the number of hungry grew to 239 million, with nearly 20 million added in the last few years meaning that nearly one in four are hungry. In sub-Saharan Africa, the modest progress achieved in recent years up to 2007 was reversed, with hunger rising 2 percent per year since then.”
