Each year, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations commemorates World Food Day.
In 2010, the theme is "United Against Hunger," an effort to recognize the regional and national efforts around the world to combat hunger.
The day was celebrated at an event Friday in Rome, where FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf and other leaders shared the campaign's message. American actress Susan Sarandon was also appointed a FAO Goodwill Ambassador.
World Food Day 2010 follows on the heels of the global hunger crisis reaching unprecedented levels -- 1 billion people hungry -- just last year.
In conjunction with the United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP), governments around the world are working to curb rates of hunger and eventually, take complete local and national control of these efforts.
In September, African nation Cape Verde took over full control of the school meals program that the WFP has supported for decades. According to the FAO, this takeover is an example of exactly the kind of nationally controlled leadership of anti-hunger programs that can -- and must -- be integral to addressing world hunger.
Innovative technology can also play an important part in providing for the hungry. In Egypt, the WFP is working with the country's government to develop a way to fortify wheat flour with essential vitamins that many of country's poor are lacking.
Donors can support hunger relief initiatives like these by making an online contribution to the World Food Programme.
The organization's website also provides a list of 10 ways to fight hunger in honor of World Food Day 2010.
The list includes playing Free Rice, an online game in which players can test their vocabulary -- or play other educational games -- to win grains of rice, which translate to real-life donations.