New Crisis
The Global Hunger
H o w A merica can b e a p art o f the sol u tion
Konyayeva
b y A mbassador T on y Hall wit h J y l Hall S M I T H
In 1980 I visited Ethiopia as a US congressman and had my heart broken. In a little town two hours north of Addis Ababa, I saw 25 children die in a matter of minutes from hunger. I was not prepared for the sight and smell of death. Since that time I’ve travelled to 125 nations as chairman of the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Hunger, then chairman of the Hunger Caucus, as well as US ambassador to the UN Food and Agriculture agencies in Rome. I had the chance to meet with Mother Teresa on a few occasions as a congressman. The first time was in Calcutta, where she took me downtown to see some of the people she was working with.The poverty was staggering, overwhelming. “How can one person make a difference with so many suffering people?” I asked her. She said, “Do the thing that is in front of you.” I soon realized I had to be as concerned about local issues as international ones. In fact, there was hunger right in our backyard. I began to learn that there were up to 33 million food-insecure individuals in our own country — a number that threatens to continue to rise drastically. In Dayton, Ohio, where I live, we started a gleaning program. Gleaning is going over a field or area that has just been harvested and gathering by hand any usable parts of the crop that remain. There are several biblical references to gleaning, including this passage from Leviticus: “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have
fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God” (19:9-10). A number of the produce contributors in Dayton actually gave their “first fruits”— that is, they selected a portion of their crop for donation prior to the harvest. This is done as a way to give back to the community. We also staged a 40-hour fast in Dayton that raised over $300,000 for local food banks and for senior citizens in need. Nearly 5,000 volunteers took part in this and other activities, as the issue of hunger at home became known. The Scriptures say in Matthew 9 that the “harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” and that we should pray for workers.Workers are needed at both the private and the government level in order to turn the tide of the growing hunger crisis. Individuals have the opportunity to respond both in local scenarios, like food banks, as well as by leveraging their citizenship in order to encourage the government to respond globally. A government — spurred on by individuals — can turn this tide Since my trip to Ethiopia 29 years ago, the number of people who are hungry in the world has tripled. Corn, wheat, and rice are in severe shortage all over the world, and the death rate is rising. The current crisis is unlike any food emergency the world has faced in the past. It is caused by a web of interconnected forces involving energy costs, underinvestment in agriculture production, global production and trading systems
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countries maternal and child nutrition account for a third of all deaths of children under five, leading to roughly 3.5 million preventable deaths each year.1 In a world where there is enough money and enough food to go around, it is a moral disgrace that we have not yet produced the level of political will required to end hunger.
based on tariffs and subsidies, climate change, loss of surplus food through the production of biofuels, new market demands from emerging markets, and outdated methods of food relief. This food crisis carries grave implications for economic growth and development, international security, and social progress in developing countries. Many nongovernmental organizations, advocacy groups, and faith-based organizations hope to encourage the Obama administration to work together with citizens all over the world to reach the established international goal of cutting global hunger in half by 2015. Despite repeated US commitments to this goal over the last several decades, global hunger has not yet been reduced. Hunger is a complex problem, demanding an integrated and strategic response that not only provides short-term relief but also offers a permanent solution. There are many things an individual can do locally in the fight against hunger, but one of your main assets is your citizenship. Advocating our government on behalf of those most affected by hunger is a responsibility that requires each of us to be educated about the issue in order to know whom to contact and what to advocate for. Organizations like Bread for the World (Bread.org) exist to help the church do just that, and they can help you organize a letter-writing campaign at your church. Don’t be afraid of putting a public official on the spot by asking him or her to get engaged and do something. I find it amazing that we likely will be giving over a trillion dollars in bailout money to business, but at this point we have not made a decision to allocate some of this funding for the hungry. Encouraging government leaders and holding them accountable to care for the needs of the vulnerable and marginalized is a theme throughout Scripture. Working for just government action by supporting positive legislation in a bipartisan, balanced way allows Christians to speak out across party lines and has proven to be effective in improving policies enacted in Washington.
A well-fed world is a productive world. Hunger and malnutrition decrease learning capabilities, impair reproductive health, and decrease earning potential, which combine to drastically affect the economic situation for many households around the world. Because of the rapid rise in food prices, many of the world’s poorest people have been forced to sell off agricultural assets in order to feed their families, threatening to worsen poverty for approximately 100 million people.2 Because of global economic interdependence, hunger limits production and purchasing ability for countries all over the world that are valued trading partners for the US. Hunger is a developmental threat that promises to erase all the gains that have been made through years of assistance. A hunger-free world is a safer world. In 2008, over 30 countries experienced conflict or riots as a result of higher food prices. Making a strong advance to end hunger would be a huge boon to global stability, and it would also be an opportunity to restore America’s weakened standing in the world. Fighting hunger is also a fight against terrorism, as much of the recruitment for terrorist organizations happens in poor regions or refugee camps. America should respond to this fact by being among the first to care for the world’s poor and give them a hope for a better future. The US cannot be expected to bear the majority of responsibility for ending world hunger, but the US can and should lead the global effort by taking immediate steps to make existing government programs more effective and by increasing funding for these programs. Government programs should be coordinated, effective, sustainable, accountable, and integrated into broader efforts. It would help to integrate these programs by having a National Hunger Czar or hunger coordinator to bring focus to this issue in the Obama administration.
Why work to end hunger? Reduced hunger in the world is a moral imperative. Although enough food is produced globally to feed all people, 923 million people are currently suffering from hunger, and another 2 billion are malnourished. Hunger and malnutrition are most concentrated in areas of poverty: In impoverished
The strategy of hunger relief The following are five steps that can help achieve reduced hunger rates on a large scale.
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Emergency response and management Emergency relief gives direct support to the world’s most vulnerable populations in times of need, which can be caused through natural disaster, conflict, or severe economic downturns. Emergency programs seek to save lives by directly providing food aid to vulnerable households or by providing access to existing food through local purchase, cash for work, or vouchers. Included in emergency management are prevention programs like disaster risk reduction, early warning systems, and climate change adaptation programs.
DIG DEEPER The Rising of Bread for the World: An Outcry of Citizens Against Hunger (Paulist Press, 2009) is Arthur Simon’s autobiographical account of the launching and development of the nation’s foremost citizens’ lobby on hunger. Simon’s unusual life gave birth to a collective Christian voice that urges our nation’s decision-makers to act against hunger at home and abroad. By persuading Congress and the administration to adopt more effective policies, Bread for the World members impact the lives of millions of people worldwide. This book shows how God uses ordinary people to make an extraordinary difference.
Safety nets, social protection, and disaster risk reduction Safety nets, social protection, and disaster risk reduction programs are designed to limit or ease the impact of trauma on vulnerable populations and reduce the need for emergency response. School feeding programs, for example, can help alleviate the burden on struggling families during a crisis. Government-togovernment assistance can also help struggling countries to provide social protections such as pensions, targeted insurance, and grants for children and the disabled. These supports will help those who are most vulnerable — such as the elderly, disabled, and female-headed households — from falling into hunger.
Enough:Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman (Public Affairs, 2009) reveals that for more than 30 years, humankind has known how to grow enough food to end chronic hunger worldwide. Yet more than 9 million people die of hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases every year, most of them in Africa and most of them children. And an impending global food crisis threatens to make things worse. In the West we think of famine as a natural disaster or as the legacy of brutal dictators. But the authors show how, in the past few decades, American, British, and European policies conspired to keep Africa hungry and unable to feed itself.
Nutrition programs Nutrition programs include support for nursing mothers and children through the proven effectiveness of promoting breastfeeding, supplements, food fortification, hygiene, sanitation, and the timely treatment of malnutrition in young children. Agriculture and infrastructure support Programs with this focus will help small-scale farmers to sustain production through access to services and capital that would help them benefit from markets. Programs should support stable land arrangements for small-scale producers and ensure gender equality in plans designed to boost agricultural production. Innovative agricultural methods should be promoted and funded in Africa, where food production has decreased over the last 30 years due to economics, the environment, corruption, and wars. The US should collaborate with other governments around the world to develop infrastructure for hunger relief. This infrastructure would include roads, storage, and processing facilities, and would allow for farm products to be sold costeffectively.
DIVE! is a documentary by Jeremy Seifert that reveals how America throws away 96 billion pounds of food a year. Follow him and his friends as they “dumpster dive” in the back alleys and gated garbage receptacles of Los Angeles supermarkets. In the process, they uncover thousands of dollars’ worth of good food — as well as the ugly fact that grocery stores know they are wasting and most refuse to do anything about it. A call to action to help distribute perfectly good food that will otherwise go into the dumpster.
Microcredit Links to private financial networks and financial services including microcredit, savings, and insurance products are key to assisting farmers to thrive in areas that are high risk for hunger. PRISM 2009
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A drop in the bucket matters
Three times nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, former US Ambassador Tony P. Hall is one of the leading advocates for hunger relief programs and improving international human rights conditions in the world. During his political career he served the state of Ohio in both Congress and the Senate, and he was sworn in as US ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture in September 2002. Jyl Hall Smith served for 13 years with various humanitarian organizations. She has repored on the AIDS and hunger crisis, and she authored a book for World Vision called A Guide to Acting on AIDS.
It will require a large-scale response to make a difference in hunger, but it is the combination of many individuals that will create an effective response. A reporter once asked Mother Teresa about her work in Calcutta,“Don’t you feel like your work is a drop in the bucket?” She responded by saying, “No, it is a drop in the ocean. But what I am doing is one less drop.” Begin with what you can do — the thing that is in front of you. Hunger can be eliminated if those of us who are followers of Jesus will do the thing that is in front of each of us as private citizens, voters, or as government officials.With all of our effort, drop by drop, hunger can eliminated. n
ENDNOTES: 1. The Lancet’s Series on Maternal and Child Undernutrition, Executive Summary, January 2008 (thelancet.com/series/maternal-and-child-undernutrition). 2. Maros Ivanic and Will Martin. “Implications of Higher Food Prices for Poverty in Low-Income Countries,” Policy Research Working Paper WPS-4594. (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2008).
Hunger-fighting organizations that educate as they alleviate of food aid, with each sequential mission addressing a particular aspect of this challenging process.
Action Against Hunger (ActionAgainstHunger.org) works in over 40 countries to help vulnerable populations gain sufficiency for long-term sustainability.The site has a research page about world hunger and a resource page that offers information about general malnutrition and country-specific resources.
New Global Citizens (NewGlobalCitizens.org) is an innovative program that combines the passion, connectivity, and resources of youth with the solutions of grassroots social entrepreneurs around the world to create change on a global scale. Highschoolers anywhere in the US can start an NGC Team on their campus, then select one of NGC’s global partner projects and set goals around three main objectives: educate their community, advocate on behalf of a pressing global issue, raise the financial resources necessary to effect real change on the ground floor in their partner community. NGC provides comprehensive education, training, and support to teams through full-time staff, interactive trainings, resource materials, site visits, and a vast network of peers across the country.
Bread for the World (Bread.org) is a nationwide Christian citizens’ movement that lobbies legislators on behalf of the hungry. Check out their letter writing campaigns as well as their curriculum guides for grades 4-6 and 7-9, Make Hunger History: Teaching about Hunger. Feeding Minds Fighting Hunger (FeedingMinds.org) offers sample materials and lessons for exploring the problems of hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity. These ask: What are hunger and malnutrition, and who are the hungry? Why are people hungry and malnourished? What can we do to help end hunger?
The Hunger Project (THP.org) seeks to improve the lives of people in developing nations by providing them, especially women, with training and credits necessary to ending hunger. It produces a newsletter and other publications that provide information about hunger and combating hunger in various parts of the world.
Food Force (Food-Force.com/index.php/teachers) is an educational video game telling the story of a hunger crisis on the fictitious island of Sheylan. Produced by the UN World Food Programme, the game takes young players from an initial crisis assessment through to delivery and distribution
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