merrion street

Tuesday 11th February 2014: Jimmy Deenihan TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, will this evening officially launch ‘The Global Hunger Crisis, Tackling Food Insecurity in Developing Countries’ by Majda Bne Saad in the Oak Room at the Mansion House, at 5.30pm.

Majda Bne Saad has been a member of the National Famine Commemoration Committee since its establishment in 2008. Global hunger and under-nutrition is the biggest development challenge facing the world. 842 million people (one in eight) are estimated to be hungry in the world today and under-nutrition is the biggest underlying cause of death in children under the age of five – it is responsible for 8,000 child deaths each day.

Speaking ahead of the event Minister Deenihan commented:

“As Chair of the National Famine Commemoration Committee, I am always very pleased to lend my support to occasions such as this that highlight the plight of the millions of men, women and children across the world who face a daily challenge to find enough food to survive.”

“Ireland has an innate understanding of hunger given our own history of famine, when one million Irish people died of starvation and over one million emigrated during ‘An Gorta Mór’ or the Great Hunger in the 1840s. It is important therefore, that we extend genuine compassion and generosity to those who are suffering from hunger, disease and poverty in the modern world and we use our experience and empathy to raise awareness of their plight.”