'Decades of progress wiped out' as hunger spreads

ActionAid UK

The food and financial crises have wiped out nearly 30 years of progress on reducing hunger, warns ActionAid, reacting to new figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization, which show that the number of hungry rose to 963 million in 2008.

These numbers mean that 17% of the world’s population is going hungry, a level of malnutrition last seen in 1990. Increased levels of malnutrition will mean higher levels of disease and ill-health and lower economic growth, said ActionAid. New research published earlier this year shows that malnutrition is the direct cause of one in every three child deaths in the world.

Commodity prices have eased but consumer food prices remain at historic highs, says the FAO.

“Poor people are telling us that basic staples remain unaffordable. Now some of them are losing jobs and earnings because of the financial crisis and that will only push hunger levels further,” said Magdalena Kropiwnicka, ActionAid’s Food Rights advisor.

ActionAid is also concerned that smallholder farmers in many developing countries, are facing a rollercoaster ride on prices and a squeeze on inputs and credits, and are not planting enough to satisfy demand once economies begin to recover. “We could experience another massive surge in food prices in late 2009 or early 2010,” added Kropiwnicka.

In June this year, delegates from 181 countries agreed to ramp up investment in agriculture, and make it the cornerstone of a sustainable solution to the food crisis. But despite the $22 billion pledged, only 10 per cent has actually been delivered and most has gone on emergency food aid rather than growing food.

“It’s an obscenity that we can spend the amount of money we do on defence, on instruments of death,” said former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “When we know a small fraction of those budgets could ensure that every human could have clean water to drink and enough food to eat.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Elders joined ActionAid to celebrate the right to food ahead of the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights tomorrow (Wednesday 10th December).

Elders observed that there are more hungry people in the world today than there were in 1948 when governments first declared food a fundamental human right. This, despite the fact that the world is seven times richer today than it was then.

Note

1. Child deaths: Paper by Robert Black of Johns Hopkins University and others in The Lancet says underweight births and inter-uterine growth restrictions cause 2.2m child deaths a year (around one every 15 seconds). Poor or non-existent breastfeeding explains another 1.4m. Other deficiencies—lack of vitamin A or zinc for instance—account for 1m. In all, that is 3.5m deaths (once you strip out double counting)—one-third of total child mortality.

2. During the past 60 years, the world grain harvest more than tripled[1]; global GDP increased sevenfold[2]; per capita income quadrupled in the industrialised world[3].

ActionAid is an international anti-poverty agency working in over 40 countries taking sides with poor people to end poverty and injustice together
www.actionaid.org

ActionAid’s HungerFREE campaign calls on governments to deliver on their commitment to halve world hunger by 2015.

[1] Worldwatch Institute (1950–59 data from Worldwatch Institute, Signposts 2001, CD-Rom (Washington, DC: 2001); 1960–2006 data from USDA, Production, Supply and Distribution, op. cit. note 6.)

2 Growth and Development Trends, 1960-2005 http://www.un.org/esa/policy/wess/wess2006files/chap1.pdf

3 Ibid.