World Hunger and Poverty

by ANDnetwork.com

SADC has called on donor governments worldwide to respond quickly and generously with food aid donations in kind or cash to avoid widespread hunger from developing into a humanitarian disaster.

More than 10 million people will need humanitarian assistance in six countries across Southern Africa over the coming year following yet another year of poor agricultural production caused by erratic weather together with late and, in some cases, unaffordable inputs, such as fertiliser and seeds, two United Nations agencies and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) have warned. Reports compiled by the UN agencies Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) — following recent joint Crop and Food Supply Assessment Missions (CFSAMs) in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zambia — show that countries were not able to grow enough food to meet domestic needs and that even allowing for considerable commercial imports, serious food shortages will persist until the next harvest in May 2006.

Other Vulnerability Assessment Committee (VAC) reports — compiled by SADC together with the UN, non-government organisations (NGOs), and the governments of Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe — confirm the need for large-scale food assistance across the region at the household level. The region also needs to formulate national policies on staple food prices, agricultural reform, and trade at the national and regional level. Collectively, the 13 member states of SADC produced a cereal surplus of 2,1 million tones compared with 1,1 million tonnes a year ago. Most of the excess was produced by South Africa, which harvested a surplus of about 5,5 million tones this year.

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Ten children die every minute as a result of malnutrition, more than a quarter of children in developing countries are underweight and suffer disease because of their poor diet, and in some areas almost half of all under-fives are malnourished, a new United Nations report says.

Unicef warns that the slow progress on reducing nutritional problems among children means that several key Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets may now be missed. Ann Veneman, executive director of Unicef, said: “The lack of progress to combat malnutrition is damaging children and nations. Few things have more impact than nutrition on a child’s ability to survive, learn effectively and escape a life of poverty.”

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From: http://www.worldhungeryear.org/info_center/just_facts.asp

US Hunger & Poverty Facts

• From 1967 to 2003, average household income (adjusted dollars) grew from $7.589 to 9,996 for those in the bottom 20%, and grew from $83,758 to $147,078 for those in the top 20%.₁
• In 2003, California had a poverty rate of 13.4%, compared to 9% in Virginia, 19.9% in Washington D.C., and 12.7% for the U.S. ₁
• For those living in poverty, the poverty gap per family member (defined as the total dollar amount short of the poverty line) grew from $1,873 to $3,018 (adjusted dollars) between 1975-2003. ₁
• From the years 1980-2000, average net income (adjusted dollars) for households with children grew by $876,300 for the top 1%, and grew by $2,000 for those in the bottom 20%. ₁
• While the number of persons at poverty level declined from 13.4% to 12.5% from 1987-2003, the number of persons on Medicaid grew from 8.4% to 12.4%₁
• Approximately 7.5 million workers (6% of the U.S. workforce) earn at or near the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.₂
• If the federal minimum wage had maintained its 1968 peak value, it would be $8.69 an hour today. ₂
• From 1956 to 1981, the minimum wage was approximately half of the average American workers wage; today it is about 30%. ₂
• In the 1960s and 70s, a full-time worker earning minimum wage could support a family of three at the poverty level. ₂
• Approximately 7.5 million workers (6% of the U.S. workforce) earn at or near the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. ₄
• From 1956 to 1981, the minimum wage was approximately half of the average American workers wage; today it is about 30%. ₄
• In the 1960s and 70s, a full-time worker earning minimum wage could support a family of three at the poverty level. ₄
• Of those individuals directly affected by the most recent federal increase in the minimum wage, 70% were over the age of 19, and 35% of the income gains went to the poorest one-fifth of working households.₂
• Currently, 13 states have laws mandating a state minimum wage that exceeds the federal level by at least one dollar and is near half the average wage of workers in that state. ₂
• Housing costs continue to squeeze the budgets of low-income families. The typical household in poverty paid 64% of its income for housing in 2003, up from 61% in 1997. ₃
• One of every 12 (8.3%) elderly Whites were poor in 1999, compared to 22.7% of elderly African-Americans and 20.4% of elderly Hispanics. ₄
• A worker earning minimum wage would have to work 97 hours a week to pay the rent of an average two-bedroom apartment. ₅
• Poverty rates are highest for families headed by single women, particularly if they are black or Hispanic. In 2001, 26.4% of female-headed families were poor, while 13.1% of male-headed families and 4.9% of married couple’s households lived in poverty. In 2001, both black and Hispanic female-headed families had poverty rates exceeding 35%. ₆
• The U.S. Conference of Mayors reports that in 2004, requests for emergency food assistance increased an average of 13%. The study also found that 56% of those requesting emergency food assistance were employed. High housing costs, low-paying jobs, unemployment, and the economic downturn led the list of reasons contributing to the rise. ₇

Source material:

1. Just the Facts: Poverty in Los Angeles Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty, US Poverty, Income and Health Insurance Data, March 2003.
2. Institute on Assets and Social Policy, Minimum Wage: Creating an Asset Foundation.
3. Hunger, Crowding, and Other Hardships are Widespread among Families in Poverty, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, December 2004.
4. “Poverty in the United States: 1999, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, pg.60-210.
5. Institute for Children and Poverty, Homeless in America: A Children’s Story – Part One (New York, NY: 1999); Twombly, Out of Reach: The Growing Gap Between Housing Costs and Income of Poor People in the United States (Washington, DC: The National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2000).
6. Hunger and Homelessness Survey 2004, 1. U.S. Census Bureau, Poverty in the United States: 2001, P-60, no. 219: Table 1.
7. U.S. Conference of Mayors – Sodexho USA, December 2004.

In the late 1800’s, Jacob Riis, a Danish immigrant in the United States, set out to document New York City’s teeming tenements on the Lower East Side. His finished product, How the Other Half Lives, was an immediate success and is now recognized as a canonical work of American sociology. By calling attention to the day-to-day activities of New York City’s forgotten underclass, Riis, along with a handful of other Progressive Era reformers like Upton Sinclair, catalyzed a political movement that would change the course of American history.

At Nextbillion, my colleagues are working on an equally ambitious project, which, in many ways, mirrors Riis’s 19th century work. From what I have seen, their project, Tomorrow’s Markets, is a 21st century answer to the problems that Riis first identified in the 1890s…

-Read Nextbillions Article-

From: http://www.thp.org/issues/

Population is linked to hunger – but not the way many people believe. We tend to grow up thinking that the problem of hunger is caused by overpopulation – too many people and not enough food. Some people even believe that deaths due to hunger actually help slow population growth.

In fact, the opposite is more nearly true. In modern history, hunger-related deaths have never been a major portion of the overall death rate. Yet, the insecurity caused by hunger-related high infant mortality rates causes parents to have more children, earlier, as a form of insurance – thus driving up the birth rates.

In every country where infant mortality rates have dropped, drops in birthrates have followed.

The underlying truth of the matter is that the same social factors that give rise to hunger also give rise to high population growth rates. Only by addressing these root causes can both problems be solved. This is the work of The Hunger Project – and of a growing number of organizations committed to these issues.

The most important of these conditions is the subjugation of women. When the education and well-being of women improves – and when women gain voice in decision making – birth rates plummet.

When The Hunger Project started, this understanding of the links between hunger, poverty and population were a “minority” view. By 1993, however, at the Cairo Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), the world community aligned on this understanding. In the Plan of Action, there were four major goals, in this order:

• Universal Education: “all countries are urged to ensure the widest and earliest possible access by girls and women to secondary and higher levels of education, as well as to vocational education and technical training”, bearing in mind the need to improve the quality and relevance of that education.”
• Reduction of Infant and Child Mortality. “By 2015, all countries should aim to achieve an infant mortality rate below 35 per 1,000 live births and an under-five mortality rate below 45 per 1,000.”
• Reduction of Maternal Mortality. “Countries with the highest levels of maternal mortality should aim to achieve by 2005 a maternal mortality rate below 125 per 100,000 live births and by 2015 a maternal mortality rate below 75 per 100,000 live births.”
• Access to Primary and Reproductive Health. “All countries should strive to make accessible through the primary health-care system, reproductive health to all individuals of appropriate ages as soon as possible and no later than the year 2015.”

These are goals that are being met in the thousands of villages mobilized by The Hunger Project, and we intend to use our influence and strategies to catalyze the process of achieving them throughout the developing world.

From: http://www.thp.org/issues/

The European Commission has allocated an extra €10 million in humanitarian aid for vulnerable children in Niger. The aim is to reduce child malnutrition and mortality. Since the beginning of this year, more than 150,000 children in Niger have been admitted to nutritional centres, many of which are supported by the Commission’s aid. The aid is also being used to improve access to primary health care for young children and their mothers, and to help the poorest families regain their food self-sufficiency, for example through distributing seeds to families who visit nutrition centres. A recent culling of chickens due to an outbreak of avian flu has contributed to the food shortage. The €10 million in aid comes on top of €8.3 million of humanitarian assistance the Commission has granted to Niger since the start of the food crisis in 2005.

The Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, said ‘Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, and this decision is a concrete expression of our solidarity towards children there who have little to eat. But if we are to achieve the goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, we must do more than help children suffering from malnutrition today. Through our ongoing development work in Niger, the Commission is supporting the people of Niger to achieve food security to prevent children from suffering in the future.’

Niger is home to an estimated half a million malnourished children under five years old, of whom more than ten percent are severely malnourished. The food shortage in 2005 has left especially poor families heavily indebted at a time when the price of food in local markets is very high. This means that the most vulnerable cannot access food. The Commission’s humanitarian aid responds to these immediate life threatening circumstances. All funds are channelled through the Commission’s Humanitarian Aid department, ECHO, under the responsibility of Commissioner Louis Michel.

Niger has suffered from recurrent malnutrition with consequent high infant mortality for years. In order to help prevent these crises from happening again, the humanitarian aid will be followed closely by support to help families grow their own food, through the 9th European Development Fund (EDF). In the long run, food security has been identified as a priority objective for the 10th EDF (2008-2013).

Avian flu adds to the problems

Many of the poorest families in Niger were dependent on poultry as a source of protein and revenue. A recent outbreak of avian influenza in Niger resulted in a massive culling of chickens for which families were not compensated, causing additional hardship for the households concerned.
For further information:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/echo/index_en.htm

From: NextBillion.net – Development Through Enterprise

In this Sunday’s Business section of the New York Times, Daniel Gross from Slate Magazine writes about the latest trend in international development: the $2 a day job. He begins his article discussing A to Z Manufacturing, a mosquito bed-netting business from Tanzania that pays its 2,000 female employees $1.80 a day. Gross explains that many of the women who have low-paying jobs at this Tanzanian manufacturer earn almost twice as much as they did as street vendors and domestic employees.

By American standards, a $1.80 a day job would be outright exploitation. But in a country where 80% of the population earns less than $2 a day, A to Z’s wages actually place their workers in the top quartile of earners. In his article, Gross quotes the New York University economist Willliam Easterly, who explains somewhat rhetorically that, “To put it in the baldest possible terms, the more sweatshops the better. As you increase the number of factories demanding labor, wages will be driven up.”

You can check out Mark Thoma’s post at the Economist’s View for commentary on Gross’s article. The Acumen Fund, which has invested in A to Z, also has a blog worth checking out.

NextBillion.net

From: http://blog2endhunger.blogspot.com/

Going hungry isn’t fun. It doesn’t feel good to the body or to the soul either. But it happens. It can happen to anyone. It has happened to me more than once. More than I’d like to admit, but, I think that people should know that no matter who you are, there’s always that chance that you could be wondering where your next meal is going to come from.

I’ve always had a difficult time either getting or keeping a job. Keeping one has been the most difficult for me. I have a daughter who misses me so much when I’m not home that she gets depressed, which has stressed me out too much. I have never been able to handle this situation well. And since I put myself in this situation, I hope to help others by sharing my story so that maybe they’ll know that they’re not alone or that they don’t have to go through what I did. There is help out there.

My daughter’s father used to buy groceries for her, but it was only enough for her and it was only when he would pick her up on a Saturday or Sunday. If he didn’t pick her up, then she went without for that week. And back then I wasn’t able to get food stamps. Now I’m not so sure that should have been the case, but, anyway, this meant that there wasn’t a lot of food in the house, so, I skipped a lot of meals to make sure that my daughter would have food. I usually ate when I started to feel weak. I’m not sure how well I hid the pain from my daughter. She’s pretty in tune with my emotions.

My daughter’s father stopped coming over to pick her up because she didn’t want to go with him, he didn’t buy her food either. So, we were really running low on food. It was so sad when my daughter would still be hungry after eating one helping of food. It also broke my heart when she would be eating and I wouldn’t join her. She look up at me with her beautiful brown eyes and I’d see a tear or two running down each cheek, which would ofen bring me to tears that I had been holding in. It got to the point where I didn’t even want to see look at my daughter’s face anymore.

I had to find a way to help ease her sadness. I explained to her that she needed to eat more than I did because she’s still growing and it wasn’t going to hurt me to eat less. I think she would tell me that she was full before her food was gone, just so that I could eat the rest.

I went to the pantry a few times and each time it was like we had one the lottery. I’d look in the cupboards that had once been almost completely empty and just thanked God that someone out there cares enough to buy food for the pantry and that there is somewhere to go to.

I did get emergency food stamps a couple of times, but for one reason or another, I’d get denied to get any on a regular basis. So, I tried to make them last by not eating too much myself. But I also couldn’t let my daughter not have seconds every single day. It just broke my heart too much.

I still don’t have a job and I have been getting the Link card for a few months, so now our cupboards are full. And so is my freezer. I still look in my cupboards and my freezer sometimes and thank God for how blessed I am.

I’m sitting here eating some almonds that I bought a couple of months ago. And I’m drinking a cup of coffee with french vanilla creamer. I enjoy my food more. I still eat junk food sometimes, but I eat healthier than I used to. I had missed snacks. Popcorn. Strawberries and banana yogurt. I savor everything I put in my mouth. And I don’t waste food. My daughter now understands why that is so important. She doesn’t like leftovers too much, but she remembers when we didn’t even have enough food for leftovers.

From: http://blog2endhunger.blogspot.com/

HUNGER FACTS

Scope of the problem
An estimated 852 million people in the developing world currently do not consume enough calories to sustain healthy bodies.

What is hunger?
Hunger is when people do not get enough food to provide the nutrients (carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals and water) for active and healthy lives.

Malnutrition results from a lack of calories and/or inadequate consumption of one or more nutrients such as Vitamin A or iodine.

Famine is a situation of extreme scarcity of food, potentially leading to widespread starvation, which is defined as extreme suffering or death from prolonged lack of food.

Hunger kills
Did you know every day 24,000 people die from hunger and hunger-related causes? Of those, 18,000 are children. One person dies of hunger every 3.6 seconds. That is more than 16 people each minute; 1,000 each hour; which translates into 8,760,000 every single year! One in six people on the planet is hungry.

More fatal than war
An estimated 17 percent of all deaths in the world are due to malnutrition and unsafe water. In the last 50 years, more than 418 million people have died from hunger and poor sanitation–nearly three times the number of people who died in all wars of the 20th century.

Chronic hunger
Chronic hunger reduces the body’s ability to function and leads to a weakened state, leaving a person more susceptible to disease. It’s these preventable illnesses that often lead to death. When hunger progresses into starvation, the body literally eats up all its reserves of protein and energy. At this point, even with intervention, a victim may be so weak that he or she may not recover.

Hungers real causes
World population is not the reason for itcontrary to what some might believe. The real reason nearly one billion of the planets six billion people are undernourished is because of food-distribution problems, natural disasters, government policies
civil unrest, inequitable trade policies, lack of knowledge and greed.

What were doing
Food for the Hungry currently impacts individuals in 46 countries, attempting to alleviate hunger and malnutrition in the world. At Food for the Hungry, we are accountable before God and before our donors to use gifts in the best way possible. We give 93 percent of our resource income to field programs and relief interventions.

What you can do
Food for the Hungry offers many ways to help. Perhaps you want to sponsor a child or join our Prayer Network. Or you can join our overseas volunteers for a few weeks with our Short-term Team Ministry or a few years through our Hunger Corps program. Or, you can donate online www.fh.org or by calling 1-800-2-HUNGERS.

About Us
Food for the Hungry currently impacts individuals in 46 countries providing emergency relief and implementing development programs throughout the world. This includes our field programs, exploratory programs and presence of our local-country offices (National Organizations). We help the world’s most disadvantaged people through child-development programs, agriculture and clean-water projects, health and nutrition programs, micro-enterprise loans and education; teaching communities to become self-sustaining. We are a Christian organization founded in 1971 by Dr. Larry Ward. For more information please visit www.fh.org

By Hassan Masum.

“For all of us, there comes a time on any given day, week, and month, every year and in different degrees over our lifetimes, when we choose to act in some way that is oriented toward fulfilling our social and psychological needs, not our market-exchangeable needs. It is that part of our lives and our motivational structure that social production taps, and on which it thrives.

There is nothing mysterious about this. It is evident to any of us who rush home to our family or to a restaurant or bar with friends at the end of a workday, rather than staying on for another hour of overtime or to increase our billable hours; or at least regret it when we cannot. It is evident to any of us who has ever brought a cup of tea to a sick friend or relative, or received one; to anyone who has lent a hand moving a friend’s belongings; played a game; told a joke, or enjoyed one told by a friend.

What needs to be understood now, however, is under what conditions these many and diverse social actions can turn into an important modality of economic production. When can all these acts, distinct from our desire for money and motivated by social and psychological needs, be mobilized, directed, and made effective in ways that we recognize as economically valuable?”

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