Monday, June 1, 2009

Year Of The Hungry: 1,000,000,000 Afflicted

Year Of The Hungry: 1,000,000,000 Afflicted

Despite the West's pledge to halve world hunger, the number of people who are short of food will soon reach a shocking landmark

By Geoffrey Lean

The Independent

28 December 2008

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/year-of-the-hungry-1000000000-afflicted-1213843.html

 

One billion people will go hungry around the globe next

year for the first time in human history, as the

international financial crisis deepens, the United

Nations has told The Independent on Sunday.

 

The shocking landmark will be passed - despite a second

record worldwide harvest in a row - because people are

becoming too destitute to buy the food that is produced.

 

Decades of progress in reducing hunger are being

abruptly reversed, dealing a devastating blow to a

pledge by world leaders eight years ago to cut it in

half by 2015.

 

Rich countries have failed to provide promised money to

boost agriculture in the Third World; the financial

crisis is starving developing countries of credit and

driving their people into greater poverty, and food aid

to the starving is expected to begin drying up next month.

 

Development charities recently called on US president-

elect Barack Obama to put the escalating food crisis

"front and centre" of his priorities.

 

Some 963 million people are now undernourished

worldwide, according to the most recent survey of the

crisis by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO),

and the UN body expects the situation to worsen with the

recession. "The number will rise steadily next year," an

FAO spokesman told the IoS last week. "We are looking at

a billion people. That is clear." The FAO fears the

tally will go on increasing for years to come.

 

This directly contradicts an undertaking by the world's

leaders at a special summit in September 2000 to "reduce

by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger"

from 1990 levels by 2015, as part of an ambitious set of

Millennium Development Goals.

 

At the time, and for several years afterwards, the goal

looked achievable, if challenging. Between 1990 and 2005

the number of undernourished people stayed more or less

the same at between 800 and 850 million, even though

world population grew by 1.2 billion, meaning that the

proportion of a rapidly increasing humanity that went

hungry was steadily falling.

 

Several countries - including Ghana, Peru, Mexico,

Chile, Jamaica and Costa Rica - actually exceeded the

target years ahead of time, while others such as

Ethiopia, Nicaragua and Mozambique were on track to

achieve it. Twenty-five developing nations looked as if

they would be able to halve the absolute number of their

hungry - not just the proportion of them in their rising

populations - by the target date.

 

But over the past three years that progress has been

thrown abruptly into reverse, with the first steep and

sustained rise in hunger in decades leaving another 115

million people short of food. The increase began when

prosperity was still increasing and has continued

despite bumper harvests; a new FAO report shows that

this year's grain crop is set to grow by 5.4 per cent to

2,241 million tons, following a 6 per cent rise last

year - ahead of population growth.

 

So the growth in hunger is not occurring, as in the

past, because of shortage of food - but because people

cannot afford to buy it even when it is plentiful. The

main reason has been that high food prices have priced

the poor out of the market.

 

Over the 12 months until last summer, wheat and maize

prices more than doubled and rice prices more than

tripled. This was due partly to the growth in biofuels

which, the FAO reports, has taken over 100 million tons

of cereals out of food supplies over the past year to

fuel cars instead. One fill of a 4x4's tank uses enough

grain to feed one poor person for a year.

 

The organisation also blames speculation, population

growth, the shrinking of food stocks to record lows and

the increasing consumption of meat in developing

countries such as China and India, which mops up grain

supplies because they are used to feed livestock.

 

International prices have fallen sharply since the

summer, as this year's good harvest has further swelled

supplies and the growing financial crisis has cut

demand. But the FAO reports that the lower prices have

failed to ease the crisis, while the increasing

financial turmoil has made it worse.

 

Developing countries have not benefited from the falling

worldwide cost of food, it says, because their

currencies have depreciated against the dollar in which

international prices are set and their domestic supplies

remain scarce, keeping prices in local markets at record levels.

 

Virtually none of the increased production of the past

two years has taken place in the Third World, partly

because its farmers have been unable to afford expensive

fertilisers and seeds while the profits of giant

agrochemical and biotech companies have soared. Now as

rich countries' economies slump, they are importing

fewer commodities and goods from developing ones,

driving national incomes down and increasing

unemployment and poverty. As employment falls in the

West, Third World immigrants are losing their jobs and

are no longer able to send back the money they save from

their wages in remittances to their families, a

financial boost that is often crucial in keeping them

out of dire poverty.

 

Just as serious, the FAO adds, the credit that Third

World farmers need to buy seeds, energy and agricultural

chemicals - and to improve production - is drying up.

 

Aid, too, is falling precipitously. Earlier this month,

the World Food Programme - the UN agency that provides

food to the hungry - announced that it was running out

of supplies. Unless it receives more soon it expects to

have to start rationing aid next month, and to run out

of food altogether for needy countries such as Haiti,

Sudan and Bangladesh by March.

 

At a special summit in June last year, rich governments

pledged $12.3bn (£8.4bn) to tackle the food crisis, but

have so far handed over only $1bn of it, as they have

scrambled to provide trillions to bail out failing banks.

 

"Overcoming the financial crisis is critical," concludes

the FAO in a recent report, "but continuing the fight

against hunger by realising those pledged billions is no

less important." Jacques Diouf, the FAO's director

general, warns: "Unless the political will and donor

pledges are turned into urgent and real actions,

millions more will fall into deep poverty."

 

Josette Sheeran, the executive director of the World

Food Programme, added: "While we worry about Wall Street

and the high street, we are also paying attention to the

needs of those who live in places with no street." She

has called on governments to devote just 1 per cent of

their bailout and stimulus packages to fighting hunger.

 

The worst is yet to come, taking the number of hungry

beyond the one billion mark. As food prices fall, the

FAO is reporting signs that farmers in Europe and North

America are reducing their plantings for next year's

harvest - and the same thing is likely to happen in the

Third World as the lack of credit stops its farmers from

being able to buy the food and agricultural chemicals

they need. So next year's harvest, it is feared, will be

smaller, even if the weather remains good.

 

The run of good seasons is unlikely to continue for

long, even in the short run. And in the medium to long

term, climate change is expected to make harvests

dramatically worse. Mr Diouf predicts that, if the world

fails to take urgent action to keep global warming

beneath 2C, the emerging international target, "the

global food production potential can be expected to

contract severely" - with harvests dropping by up to 40

per cent in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

 

Global targets: a progress report

 

Goal one Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger between 1990 and 2015.

 

Progress 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty,

down from 42 per cent of the world population in 1990 to

26 per cent in 2005. Up to 75 per cent of the population

is employed except in parts of Africa and Asia.

Undernourished under-fives dropped from 33 per cent in

1990 to 26 per cent in 2006.

 

Success or failure? Still possible by 2015 but lack of

progress in sub-Saharan Africa, where workers earn less

than $1 a day.

 

Goal two Universal primary education by 2015.

 

Progress 570 million children worldwide enrolled in

school. Those not enrolled fell from 103 million in 1999

to 73 million in 2006. Primary school enrolment reached

88 per cent in 2006, up 5 per cent per cent from 2000.

 

Success or failure? 38 million children in sub-Saharan

Africa are not enrolled, while in southern Asia 18

million do not go to school. This goal may not be

achieved by 2015, and there are barriers on girls going

to school.

 

Goal three Promote gender equality in education by 2015

and empower women.

 

Progress 55 per cent of children not in school are

girls. Women occupy about 30 per cent of parliamentary

seats in 20 countries. Women occupy 40 per cent of all

paid jobs, up 5 per cent on 1990.

 

Success or failure? 113 countries failed to achieve

equality of enrolment; only 18 will meet the target.

Since 2000, the proportion of women in parliaments rose

from 13.5 to 17.9 per cent.

 

Goal four Reduce child mortality of under-fives by two-

thirds between 1990 and 2015.

 

Progress Deaths of under-fives declined from 93 to 72

deaths per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2006, and

child deaths dropped below 10 million a year in 2006.

 

Success or failure? Children born in developing

countries still 13 times more likely to die under five.

Between 1990 and 2006, 26 countries made no progress in

reducing childhood deaths, while in 27 others the

mortality rate is flat or getting worse.

 

Goal five Improve maternal health and reduce mortality

by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015.

 

Progress Maternal mortality decreased by less than 1 per

cent per year between 1990 and 2005; 60 per cent of

births were attended by health professionals in 2006, up

10 per cent since 1990.

 

Success or failure? 500,000 women a year in developing

countries die during pregnancy. Worst progress of all goals.

 

Goal six Universal access to treatment for Aids/HIV by

2010 and reverse spread of HIV/Aids and malaria by 2015.

 

Progress New HIV cases declined from three million a

year in 2001 to 2.7 million in 2007. Funding increased

tenfold within a decade. Mosquito net production rose

from 30 million in 2004 to 95 million in 2007.

 

Success or failure? 7,500 people a day infected with

HIV; 5,500 die of Aids-related illness; 500 million new

cases of malaria a year.

 

Goal seven Reduce loss of biodiversity by 2010 and halve

number of people without access to safe water or

sanitation by 2015.

 

Progress Deforestation declined to 7.3 million hectares

a year; 1.6 billion people have access to drinking water

since 1990.

 

Success or failure? 40 per cent of the world lives with

water scarcity, and fish stocks are overexploited. One

billion people still have no access to safe drinking

water and 2.5 billion have no access to basic

sanitation, yet target may still be achieved.

 

Goal eight Develop a global partnership for development.

 

Progress The UK is among the few nations to meet targets

of giving 0.15 per cent of gross national Income in aid.

The burden of debt in developing countries fell from 13

per cent of exports in 2000 to 7 per cent in 2006.

 

Success or failure? Aid dropped from £67bn in 2005 to

£64bn in 2007 but needs to increase by £18bn a year. A

third of essential medicines are available in 30

developing countries.

 

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