World Hunger and Poverty

Recent research in the UK has shown that women’s low pay has huge implications on child poverty.

I think we can apply those findings to most countries. Throughout the world, women both tend to have most of the child raising responsibilities and tend to receive lower pay. For example, many single mothers work hard at multiple jobs and still do not earn enough to support themselves and their children. That means the mothers often do not have enough time to raise their children and do not have enough money to provide their children with quality education since the mothers can neither afford private school nor afford to live in an area with quality public schools.

To break the poverty trap, I believe we must ensure that single mothers and all parents get paid enough to properly raise their children.

What do you think? How do you suggest we raise the pay of women and ensure parents can afford to raise their children? Post your responses and other ideas about the topic in the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.

The ENS did a great job reporting about the opening of the High-level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy.

In my opinion, the most noteworthy part is when Dr. Jacques Diouf, the director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, pointed out the shameful contrast between what we waste and how relatively little it would take to eradicate world hunger. After pointing out the trillions spent yearly on militarism and the billions of dollars worth of food wasted, Dr. Diouf asked, “How can we explain to people of good sense and good faith that it was not possible to find US$30 billion a year to enable 862 million hungry people to enjoy the most fundamental of human rights: the right to food and thus the right to life?”

Resources that could go towards feeding the hungry and eradicating poverty are spent on expensive and needlessly destructive endeavors such as the occupation of Iraq and the war on drugs like marijuana. I could never describe how intensely that upsets me.