World Food Program warns the UN that a record 38 million people are at risk of starvation in Africa

The World Food Program (WFP) was started in 1962 and is concerned with 'providing enough food for every child, woman and man to live an active life'. It is part of the United Nations (UN) program and works alongside its sister UN agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and other UN partners. The WFP have five objectives, three of which are to save lives in emergencies, to prepare for emergencies, and to rebuild lives after emergencies. In an attempt to prepare for an emergency, the WFP warned the UN Security Council on 3 December 2002, that 38 million Africans were at risk of starvation. The sub-Saharan countries of Zimbabwe, Malawi, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia and Mozambique were among the worst to be affected. The food situation in Africa is dire, but it is estimated that around 800 million people in the world are suffering from hunger, with many well-developed nations in the world experiencing challenges in adequately feeding all their citizens. Nearly fifty million people in the United States struggled to feed themselves in 2008. Other parts of the world are greatly affected as well, for example, the Indian subcontinent, which alone contains half of the world's starving population. It is through consistent efforts of organizations like the WFP and other non-governmental organizations that this scourge can be stopped.