Today’s ‘Chart of the Day’ comes from Der Spiegel’s Guido Mingelo via Statista.com and offers a ray of good news and perspective on one of the most important global issues: famine.

As Guido Mingelo notes:

“The most dreadful, deadliest kind of hunger is widespread famines. The last major disaster of this kind took place in Somalia in 2011, with an estimated death toll of 250,000 — almost 5 percent of the nation’s population. However, other historic incidents from the 20th century dwarf this figure. Since 1920 more than 70 million people have died in famines, almost half of which were Chinese falling victim to Mao’s Great Leap Forward into the abyss, while Stalin’s deadly forced collectivization policy, which mostly took place in the territories of today’s Ukraine and Kazakhstan, accounts for another fourth. Between 1920 and 1970, 529 out of 100,000 people worldwide died in famines per decade on average. However, this number shrunk to just 3 out of 100,000 from 2000 to 2009.”

You will find more statistics at Statista

While three famine deaths per 100,000 is still three too many, the world has made tremendous progress in reducing famine deaths in the 21st century, a fact worth celebrating. Despite what may seem like a constant barrage of negative news stories and events around the world, a great portion of the world enjoys a safety and stability previous generations could only dream of.