In 2015, the FAO was criticized by "The Economist" for giving a diploma to Venezuela for being one of 72 countries that had "reached the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving the percentage of their populations suffering from hunger". It argued that the positive conclusion reached by FAO about the performance of a country experiencing major economic difficulties was based on false statistics and that the percentage of the Venezuelan population suffering from hunger had actually increased. It quoted FAO as saying that it had no reason to doubt the Venezuelan statistics.