Eight hundred forty million people suffer from malnourishment around the world.
However, statistics do not have the same impact as actually being an eyewitness to poverty.
Ambassador Tony Hall had such an experience.
Hall became the first U.S. congressman to visit Ethiopia during the great famine of 1984-85. This experience is what has stuck with him throughout his long and distinguished career combatting global hunger.
As a congressman and later as the chief of the U.S. Mission to the U.N. Agencies in Rome, he has spent time in more than 100 countries observing the problem of poverty.
Addressing a group of about 25 students over dinner as part of the Robert A. Fox Leadership Program, Hall described the horror of seeing a group of Ethiopian people walk 100 miles in search of food and then collapse and die of starvation.
He said of his visit that "Ethiopia was an experience that I never really got over."
Motivated by what he saw, Hall decided that he was going to focus on hunger during his time in office. He became the chairman of the House Select Committee on Hunger and the Democratic Caucus Task Force on Hunger.
In February 2002, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to be the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture in Rome.
These agencies include the World Food Program, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
He said the job is immensely rewarding but can also be equally frustrating, due to the sheer scale of the hunger problem.
Hall said that the problem is not due to a moral failure, but rather to the fact that society lacks "the political and spiritual will" to deal with it.
This makes it a difficult issue to engage. Hall credits religion for giving him the strength to go on, in spite of the persistence of poverty and hunger.
"My faith keeps me in it," he said. "I have a very strong faith. God is with the poor."
He also underscored the importance of strong leaders who can help eradicate poverty and hunger.
"We have a crisis of leadership" in Africa, he said.
He offered students hope, saying, "If any of you becomes a leader on this issue, you can change the world."
At the end of the talk, he repeated Mother Teresa's advice to "do the thing that's in front of you" as the key to making a difference.
College junior Erin O'Brien found Hall to be an inspiring leader.
"You expect people who lead to be full of hope to change society," she said. "Whatever change you help create makes a difference."
College senior Ben Cruse, student director of the Fox Leadership Program, said he was pleased with Hall's talk.
"The purpose of the Fox Leadership Program is to imbue students with the principles, applications and ethics of leadership," he said, adding that "Penn students have an obligation to lead, and they can take Tony Hall as an example."
Max Finberg, an assistant to Hall, said he once heard Hall speak as a student. Finberg's advice to students is to "find the right person [to work with] rather than the right job."
