AKIPRESS.COM - Hundreds of millions of children and adults in Asia's rapidly expanding cities are undernourished, and will remain so without "inclusive, sustainable and nutrition-sensitive" urban planning, offiicals from the United Nations said on Friday, Aljazeera reports.

The Asia-Pacific region has the world's highest rate of urbanisation, while also being home to more than half the world's 821 million undernourished people, four UN agencies said in a report released in Bangkok.

"Progress in reducing undernourishment has slowed tremendously," said the regional heads of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

"As migration from rural to urban areas continues apace, particularly involving poorer families, urban malnutrition is a challenge facing many countries," they said in a statement.