How the Global Food Crisis is Hurting Children: The impact of the food price hike on a rural community in northern Bangladesh

Published

April 2009

The global food crisis is expected to push the number of undernourished people in the world to more than one billion in 2009.

Inevitably, children will be particularly affected by this crisis and will be overrepresented in this statistic.

As a result, progress towards reaching both Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 1 and 4 will be in jeopardy.

In November 2008, Save the Children UK undertook research to examine how this crisis affected different sectors of a rural community in northern Bangladesh.

Using extensive data collected before prices started to rise, and at the end of the peak of the crisis, we were able to identify the impact of the escalation of food prices on household income and children’s nutrition.

Without research like this, we will continue to fail the millions of children worldwide who were already living with hunger, as well as the millions more who have joined their ranks since this crisis hit.

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