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What
Is Hunger?
When
most of us think of hunger, we think of famine --
the sudden shortages of food that make the
headlines, due to war, drought or natural disaster.
Famine is only the tip of the iceberg: less
than 10 percent of hunger deaths are due to
famine.
The much larger
issue is chronic, persistent hunger -- a
silent, day by day killer that takes the lives of
24,000 people every day, three-quarters of whom are
children under the age of five. According to the
recent World Food Summit, 840 million people
live in the condition of chronic, persistent
hunger, one-seventh of our human family. The vast
majority of hungry people live in South Asia and
sub-Saharan Africa.
People suffer from
chronic, persistent hunger not because there is a
shortage of food. The world produces more than
enough food for everyone. People go hungry because
they lack opportunity -- the opportunity
to earn enough money to meet their most basic
requirements. No matter how hard they work, people
in the conditions of hunger cannot earn more than
$1 per day.
The obstacles to
ending hunger are not technical, financial or
agricultural. The persistence of hunger is a
human issue. Hunger persists because we,
as human beings, have failed to organize our
societies in ways that assure every person the
chance to live a healthy and productive
life.
The Hunger Project
recognizes that the very framework of
thinking underlying much of the action being
taken on behalf of hungry people is deeply flawed,
treating hungry people as passive beneficiaries
rather than as dignified, hard-working, primary
actors for their own future.
How
Do We Measure Hunger?
The best way we have to measure the persistence of
hunger is the infant mortality rate (IMR:
the number of children, out of every 1,000 born,
who die before their first birthday). Most experts
agree that when a society gets its IMR below
50, a critical threshold has been crossed.
Though there may still be pockets of hunger, when
the IMR falls below 50, hunger has ended as a
society-wide issue.
Progress
Has Been Made
In the past 50 years, more progress has been made
in improving the lives of people in developing
countries than in the past 2,000 years.* Infant
mortality rates, the best measure of the
persistence of hunger, have been cut dramatically
since The Hunger Project began in 1977.
In addition,
average incomes have more than doubled in real
terms. Life expectancy has increased. Birthrates
have dropped 25 percent. And the number of families
with access to safe water has increased from 10
percent to 60 percent. While world population has
continued to grow, food production has kept pace,
and the food available per person has increased in
every region of the world except Africa.
We must go beyond
the statistics, however, to see the dramatic
progress that has been made during the 1990s in
resolving the underlying human issues that hold
hunger in place.
- The end of
apartheid and the end of the cold war have ended
conflicts that devastated developing
countries.
- Democracy has
flourished. It is well known, for example, that
having a free press makes famines virtually
impossible.
- There has been
a remarkable emergence of a rich and vibrant
civil society. People have formed
thousands of organizations to improve their
lives: village self-help groups, farmers'
cooperatives, women's groups, student groups,
trade and professional associations and
opposition political parties.
- The
environment has moved from being a peripheral
issue to a key issue for world peace.
- Women's
participation and leadership have been
increasing.
An unprecedented
global consensus has emerged. From the World Summit
for Children in 1990, through the summits in Rio,
Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing and Rome, leaders of
virtually every nation have committed to a
comprehensive set of goals. Whereas the twentieth
century was dominated by war and the threat of war,
as we near the new millennium the issues that will
dominate our future are not military and political
but human issues: hunger, poverty,
population, health and the environment.
Meeting
the Remaining Challenges
The crucial issues facing humanity are inextricably
linked. They form a single, unified nexus of issues
we call the New Human Agenda. Only in
solving the entire agenda do we solve any of
it.
- Empowerment
of Women:Hunger
most directly affects women. Women bear primary
responsibility for health, education and
nutrition, but women are the poorest in society;
70 percent of the world's poor are women and
girls. The key leaders and actors for resolving
these issues must be women. Humanity will never
succeed in meeting the challenges of the New
Human Agenda as long as half the human race are
denied their most basic human rights.
- People's
Participation:
Ending hunger requires that people not be
treated as passive "beneficiaries" but empowered
as the creators of their own future. They must
power over the issues that affect their lives.
This means democracy not only at the national
level. Governments must extend decision-making
and resources to the local level. Hungry people
must gain power in society, organizing in
producers' associations and women's self-help
and empowerment groups.
- Universal
Health and Education:
To succeed in creating a better future, people
must have access to affordable ways to meet
their basic needs and obtain skills relevant to
their lives. Local leaders must be empowered to
ensure that everyone has access to primary
health care, clean and sufficient drinking
water, safe sanitation, good nutrition and basic
education.
- Food
Security:
The fact that the world produces enough food is
not enough. Food security must be established at
every level: regional, national, household and
even among the members within a single
household. Nations and regions must strive for
food self-sufficiency so as to avoid putting
their very survival at the whim of the global
marketplace. This means greater investment in
rural roads and market infrastructure,
developing appropriate sustainable agricultural
techniques and ensuring that they reach the
hands of farmers.
- Livelihood
Security:
Ending hunger and poverty is a function of
ensuring that every woman and man has the
opportunity to earn a livelihood -- not
handouts, but true economic empowerment. This
requires development of opportunities
appropriate to rural and urban poor, access to
vocational training and credit for the poorest
members of society.
- Stabilization
of Population Growth:
Nations will never close the gaps in food
availability, health care, education and income
opportunities as long as the population grows at
an unsustainably high rate. When people, and
particularly women, are educated and are given
the choice, they choose to have fewer children
and space them at healthier intervals.
- Preservation
of the Natural Environment:
Urgent
steps must be taken to preserve our environment
as a hospitable home for all future generations.
Hungry people, whom some have portrayed as the
"enemy" of the environment, often prove to be
the best caretakers. Their livelihoods depend
most directly on the health of the environment,
and traditional wisdom often brings reverence
for, and techniques appropriate to, preserving
the environment.
Hunger
and the Subjugation of Women
Hunger
persists where women's progress is thwarted by law,
custom and tradition.
Women
lack an adequate share of resources to provide for
their children or to improve their lives. They lack
a voice in making decisions affecting family
planning, food production and nutrition.
The
forms of the subjugation are varied and pervasive.
In many villages, women are not allowed to speak in
group meetings. In some areas, laws make it illegal
for women to form cooperatives to borrow money. Men
often prevent their wives from taking literacy
lessons. Girls are taken out of school at an early
age, while boys continue their
education.
- Poverty
and hunger are gender issues -- more than 70
percent of those living in poverty are
women.
- According
to the 1996 UNICEF Progress of Nations
report, South Asia has the world's highest child
malnutrition rates because women there are the
most subjugated. They eat last and least. They
are malnourished and give birth to malnourished
children, who are never able to catch up.
- From
grassroots groups to the World Bank, it is now
well known that the most important investment a
developing nation can make is in the education
of its girls, and that women are the most
efficient generators of wealth.
- Women
and girls continue to be marginalized in
programs that deal with hunger and poverty. In
Africa, where women farmers produce 80 percent
of the food, they receive less than 7 percent of
farm extension services and
resources.
Central
to The Hunger Project's strategy is the empowerment
of women in ways that enable them to achieve
improvements in all key areas that affect their
lives and those of their families, communities and
nations.
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