Twenty two countries suffer recurrent food crises due to natural disasters, conflicts and weak government. A FAO/PAM report on food shortages, released today, speaks of a prolonged crisis. Three times as many people are malnourished in these countries than in other developing countries The report estimates that there are more than 166 million malnourished people in countries in prolonged crisis, about 20% of the world’s hungry, but more than one third of the total if we exclude big countries like India and China. A good proportion of aid comes as humanitarian emergency food supplies which save lives and invest in the future of the country, preserving and strengthening human capital and living conditions, essential for stability and future development. In recent weeks FAO estimated that there are 925 million people living in conditions of chronic hunger, 98 million less than the 1.2 billion in 2009.