The Millennium Development Goals, adopted at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, are the world's targets for dramatically reducing extreme poverty in its many dimensions by 2015¿income poverty, hunger, disease, exclusion, lack of infrastructure and shelter while promoting gender equality, education, health and environmental sustainability. These bold goals can be met in all parts of the world if nations follow through on their commitments to work together to meet them. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals offers the prospect of a more secure, just, and prosperous world for all. The UN Millennium Project was commissioned by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to develop a practical plan of action to meet the Millennium Development Goals. As an independent advisory body directed by Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, the UN Millennium Project submitted its recommendations to the UN Secretary General in January 2005. The core of the UN Millennium Project's work has been carried out by 10 thematic Task Forces comprising more than 250 experts from around the world, including scientists, development practitioners, parliamentarians, policymakers, and representatives from civil society, UN agencies, the World Bank, the IMF, and the private sector. This report lays out the recommendations of the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Hunger in seven major categories: political action; national policy reforms; increased agricultural productivity for food insecure farmers; improved nutrition for the chronically hungry; productive safety nets for the acutely hungry; improved rural incomes and markets; and restoration and conservation of natural resources essential for food security. The task force strongly endorses the Secretary General's call for a 21st Century African Green Revolution. These bold yet practical approaches will enable countries in every region of the world to halve world hunger by 2015.

Table of Contents:
Foreword -- Task force members -- Preface -- The Task Force on Hunger’s methodology -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Millennium Development Goals -- Executive summary -- 1. The imperatives for reducing hunger -- Defining hunger -- Determinants of hunger -- The social and economic costs of hunger -- Moral and legal foundations for eradicating hunger -- 2. Who is on track or off track to meet the hunger Goal? -- Hunger hotspots—measuring underweight at the subnational level -- Hunger indicator 1—percentage of the population below the minimum level of dietary energy consumption -- Hunger indicator 2—the prevalence of underweight children under five years of age -- Underweight children in Africa -- Underweight children in Asia -- Underweight children in Central Asia and Europe -- Underweight children in Latin America and the Caribbean -- A global view of the prevalence and density of underweight children -- 3. A strategic approach for halving hunger -- Forging a global partnership -- Promoting good governance -- Mainstreaming gender equality -- Adopting a people-centered approach -- Investing in science and technology -- Vulnerability analysis—a tool for setting priorities -- The seven recommendations -- 4. Move from political commitment to action [Recommendation one] -- Background -- Advocate political action to meet intergovernmental agreements -- Strengthen the contributions of donor countries and national -- governments to activities that combat hunger -- Improve public awareness of hunger issues and strengthen advocacy organizations -- Strengthen developing country advocacy organizations that deal with poverty and hunger -- Strengthen accurate data collection, monitoring, and evaluation -- Actions needed to implement recommendation one -- 5. Reform policies and create an enabling environment [Recommendation two] -- Background -- Promote an integrated policy approach to hunger reduction -- Restore the budgetary priority of the agricultural and rural sectors -- Build developing country capacity to achieve the hunger Goal -- Link nutritional and agricultural interventions -- Increase poor people’s access to land and other productive resources -- Empower women and girls -- Strengthen agricultural and nutrition research -- Remove internal and regional barriers to agricultural trade -- Increase the effectiveness of donor agencies’ hunger-related programming -- Create vibrant partnerships to ensure effective policy implementation -- Actions needed to implement recommendation two -- 6. Increase the agricultural productivity of food-insecure farmers [Recommendation three] -- Background -- Improve soil health -- Improve and expand small-scale water management -- Improve access to better seeds and other planting materials -- Diversify on-farm enterprises with high-value products -- Establish effective agricultural extension services -- Actions needed to implement recommendation three -- 7. Improve nutrition for the chronically hungry and vulnerable [Recommendation four] -- Background -- Promote mother and infant nutrition -- Reduce malnutrition among children under age five -- Reduce malnutrition among school-age children and adolescents -- Reduce vitamin and mineral deficiencies -- Reduce infectious diseases that contribute to malnutrition -- Actions needed to implement recommendation four -- 8. Reduce the vulnerability of the acutely hungry through productive safety nets [Recommendation five] -- Background -- Build and strengthen national and local early warning systems -- Build and strengthen the capacity to respond to emergencies -- Invest in productive social safety nets -- Actions needed to implement recommendation five -- 9. Increase incomes and make markets work for the poor [Recommendation six] -- Background -- Invest in and maintain market-related infrastructure -- Develop networks of small rural input traders -- Improve access to financial services for the poor and food-insecure -- Provide and enforce a sound legal and regulatory framework -- Strengthen the bargaining power of the rural and urban poor in labor markets -- Ensure access to market information for the poor -- Promote and strengthen community and farmer associations -- Promote alternative sources of employment and income -- Actions needed to implement recommendation six -- 10. Restore and conserve the natural resources essential for food security [Recommendation seven] -- Background -- Help communities and households restore or enhance natural resources -- Secure local ownership, access, and management rights to natural resources -- Develop natural resource-based “green enterprises” -- Pay poor rural communities for environmental services -- Actions needed to implement recommendation seven -- 11. Implementing the recommendations of the Task Force on Hunger -- Setting priorities for interventions -- Strengthening capacity for scaling up -- Refining national hunger strategies -- Securing financing for implementation -- Implementation at the local level -- Synergistic entry points to overcoming hunger -- Appendix 1. Glossary -- Appendix 2. Papers Commissioned by the Task Force on Hunger -- Appendix 3. Subregional data on underweight prevalence -- Notes -- References.