Several arguments have prompted the Leadership Council to include hunger and nutrition under extreme poverty:

i.     Hunger and malnutrition are challenges that affect rural as well as urban areas, so grouping hunger under a place-based “rural” goal might weaken the focus on urban hunger; 


ii.    Hunger is not only a function of food availability, which a goal focused on sustainable food production might suggest; 


iii.   Stunting and malnutrition are key dimensions of extreme poverty that give substance to the notion of “extreme poverty in all its forms”; and 


iv.   A poverty/hunger goal ensures full continuity with MDG 1. 


Note that in sub-Saharan Africa, the links between hunger and low agricultural productivity are especially acute, so that, in this region, the reduction of hunger and the achievement of sustainable agriculture are deeply intertwined.