Whenever I visit the Asia-Pacific region I am impressed by its dynamism and the many successes its people have achieved, not least of which was meeting the goal of halving the proportion of hungry people in region under the just-concluded Millennium Development Goals (MDG) effort.
Now, the successors to the MDGs — the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — have set the bar higher, taking aim at the complete eradication of hunger and major improvements in nutrition. Globally the will is there, and with the energy that countries in Asia and the Pacific have shown in recent years, the region can again play a leadership role in this bold effort.
But it's not time to take a victory lap, not yet. Successes haven't been even, and with 490 million people across Asia and the Pacific still suffering from poor nutrition — that's 62 percent of all hungry people in the world — the battle is far from over. Indeed, the road to a Zero Hunger world will not be easy and the challenges — here in the region and across the planet — are as many as they are complex.