The world is making scant progress toward an aim of halving the number of hungry people by 2015, but could still succeed if efforts are redoubled, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

A child starves to death every five seconds on average, its food agency said in its annual report.

Eight years since the pledge at a 1996 food summit, and with 11 years to go, few people have been freed from hunger and the number of the malnourished, after dipping in the early 1990s, is rising once again.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates around 815 million people in the developing world and 28 million in the so-called transition former communist countries have too little food to lead active, productive lives.

That is just nine million fewer than in 1990-2, the years used as a baseline against which to measure progress.

“The number of hungry people remains intolerably high, progress in reaching them unconscionably slow and the cost in ruined lives and wasted resources incalculably large,” the World Bank’s Lynn Brown said in a foreword to the report.

But the FAO’s annual hunger review, “Food Insecurity in the World,” contained glimmers of hope.

The number of hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa continues to rise but slower than a few years ago and, with a growing population, the proportion of those malnourished has dropped from 36 to 33 percent.

More than 30 countries, including the world’s most populous, China, have cut the prevalence of hunger by at least a quarter.

DISTANT BUT ATTAINABLE

The FAO says the hunger reduction target, almost as distant as when it was set, is “both attainable and affordable” and relatively small efforts, if well targeted, could make all the difference.

Hunger must be tackled on two fronts, the report said - increasing farm output in poor countries, and channeling aid to the most vulnerable such as mothers with young babies.

FAO assistant director-general Hartwig de Haan said special emphasis needed to be given to the very young.

“Today’s two-year-old children who are underweight represent a burden for future decades unless they are better nourished. They will be mentally and physically handicapped for their whole lives,” he told Reuters.

The FAO estimated the lost income potential of those people throughout their lives, even if they are subsistence farmers, is worth between $500 billion and $1,000 billion.

“Investment in hunger reduction is one of the best investments one can consider,” de Haan said.