Hunger and Developing Nations

Hunger: A worldwide problem

• 840 million people worldwide suffer from hunger (UN Food and Agriculture Organization).
• Of those, 92% suffer from long-term malnourishment. Only 8% are victims of famine or other extreme events (UN FAO).
• Every year, six million children die before their 5 th birthday from chronic hunger and related diseases (UNICEF).
• 2 billion people worldwide suffer from micronutrient deficiency even if they ingest sufficient calories (UN FAO).

Food Security in Africa: A Bleak Prognosis

• In 1960, Africa was a net exporter of food; nowadays, the continent imports one-third of its grain (The Hunger Project).
• 43% of Africans do not have adequate food security (The Hunger Project).
• Declining soil fertility, land degradation, and the AIDS pandemic have led to a 23% decrease in food production per capita in the last 25 years even though population has increased dramatically (The Hunger Project).
• For the African farmer, conventional fertilizers cost 2 to 6 times more than the world market price (World Agro forestry Centre).

Overseas Investment: Pulling Out at the Wrong Time

• From 1990 to 2000, foreign aid to Africa dropped by 10% (The Hunger Project).
• From 1990 to 1999, wealthy countries decreased their overseas agricultural assistance by 30% (Bread for the World). From 1980 to 2000, USAID cut agricultural aid to Africa by 57% (Bread for the World).
• Currently, two hundredths of one percent (.02%) of U.S. GNP goes to investing in Africa (OECD).

Spiraling Development Problems: Poverty, AIDS, and Eroding Resources

• In 1969, one-half of Africans lived on less $1 per day. In 1999, the proportion rose to nearly two-thirds (Bread for the World).
• In 2002, 70% of the 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS lived in Africa. That same year, 80% of new infections occurred in Africa (Bread for the World).
• Africa's forest cover erodes at a rate of 9.14 million acres per year (Bread for the World).
• Half of Africa's farmland has been ravaged by soil degradation and erosion (Bread for the World).
• 80% of African pasture and range areas are severely degraded (Bread for the World).

For more information, visit http://www.earth.columbia.edu/tropagor http://www.bread.org/.

The Millennium Development Goals:

Committing to Change

In September 2000, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration which included eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to address the gravest problems in developing countries. UN members committed to significantly reducing each problem by the year 2015, and resolving each problem completely over the longer term. The MDGs are:

• Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
• Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
• Goal 5: Improve maternal health
• Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
• Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
• Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for Development.

The Millennium Declaration also included commitments to:

• Promote democracy and good governance
• Ensure human rights and strengthen the rule of law
• Establish an open and non-discriminatory multilateral trade system
• Significantly increase wealthy nation investment in developing nations as part of a worldwide effort to meet the MDGs.

The United Nations Secretary General then created the Millennium Project to develop an action plan for achieving the eight MDGs for the UN and its member governments. The Millennium Project, which is directed by Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, formed ten Task Forces that are each devising strategies to meet the MDGs:

• Task Force 1 on Poverty and Economic Development
• Task Force 2 on Hunger
• Task Force 3 on Primary Education and Gender Equality
• Task Force 4 on Child Health and Maternal Health
• Task Force 5 on HIV/AIDS, Malaria, TB, Other Major Diseases, and Access to Essential Medicines
• Task Force 6 on Environmental Sustainability
• Task Force 7 on Water and Sanitation
• Task Force 8 on Improving the Lives of Slum Dwellers
• Task Force 9 on Open, Rule-Based Trading Systems
• Task Force 10 on Science, Technology and Innovation

The Millennium Project is located in New York City. For more information, visit http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/or http://www.developmentgoals.org/.

Why Solve World Hunger?

Developing Country Growth Benefits the World Economy

Investment in Agriculture and Women: A High Rate of Return

• In Sub-Saharan Africa, one dollar of income from agriculture adds $2 to $3 to the overall economy. Rising agricultural incomes and production leads to more jobs and higher demand for consumer goods, agricultural supplies and services (International Food Policy Research Institute).
• Agriculture provides livelihoods for 69 percent of the workforce in developing countries and accounts on average for half of most nations' GDP. Agriculture is the largest long-term engine of developing country economic growth (IFPRI).
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, 80% of farmers are women and 90% of food processors and water and fuel providers are women (IFPRI). For every 1% increase in girls who have attended secondary school, annual per capita income grows by .3% (World Bank).
• Long-term investment leads to long-term development. When investment is consistent and properly targeted over decades, one dollar of agricultural research investment leads to $4.39 of new imports (IFPRI).

Investing in Developing Country Agriculture: New Markets for American Exports

• As developing country economies grow, demand for imports rises so quickly that the percentage increase in imports is actually greater than the initial GNP growth percentage (IFPRI).
• For one dollar of aid devoted to international agricultural research, developing countries are able to spend 29 cents more on imports (IFPRI).
• Out of each dollar increase in developing country farm output, 73 cents is spent on new imports including 7 cents on new agricultural imports and 3 cents on new cereal imports (IFPRI).
• The share of world exports that go to developing countries increased from 13 percent in 1971 to more than 26 percent in 1993 (IFPRI).

Exports to Developing Countries and the U.S. economy

• In the United States, one billion dollars of exports creates 20,000 American jobs (IFPRI).
• In 1995, annual exports to developing countries totaled 197 billion dollars . Almost 4 million U.S. jobs depended on sales to developing countries (IFPRI).
• Over the 1990s, wealthy country imports fell at the rate of 1 percent per year in real terms while developing countries imports increased by more than 5 percent annually (IFPRI).
• Long-term foreign assistance, properly targeted to activities that promote agriculture, women's education, and rural development in poor countries will create U.S. jobs , raise U.S. export earnings, and bolster the U.S. economy (IFPRI).

For more information, visit http://www.ifpri.org/.

The Root Cause and the Solution:

Women Are the Key to Ending Hunger and Saving Lives

African Woman Food Farmers (Source: The Hunger Project)

• Produce 80% of Africa's food
• Do 90% of the work to process food
• Provide 90% of water, wood, and fuel
• Do 60% of the work to market Africa's food
• Own 1% of the land
• Receive less than 7% of farm extension services
• Receive less than 10% of credit given to small-scale farmers.

Educating Girls to Become Healthy Women with Healthy Children

• 80% of farmers in Africa are women. Yet 40% of women in Africa have never seen the inside of a schoolhouse (The Hunger Project).
• If a girl is educated for six years or more, prenatal care, postnatal care and childbirth survival, always improves (ICRW).
• Educated mothers immunize their children 50% more than mothers who are not educated (UNICEF).
• AIDS spreads twice as quickly among uneducated girls than among girls that have even some schooling (World Food Program).
• If a girl is educated for at least seven years , she has two or three fewer children than she would if she were uneducated (UNESCO).
• The children of a woman with five years of primary school education have a survival rate 40% higher than children of women with no education (World Bank).

Investing in Women as a Solution to Hunger

• 50% of pregnant women in Africa, 75% of pregnant women in South Asia and 83% of pregnant women in India suffer from anemia. When pregnant women are malnourished, their children battle serious and lifelong health complications (UNICEF).
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, women are on the frontlines of activities essential to ending hunger--food production, nutrition, family health, and education. Yet, through lack of civil and property rights, and without access to education, capital, or health care, they are systematically denied the means, information and freedom of action to be effective in their responsibilities (The Hunger Project).
• As one important step toward this goal, USAID has sponsored The Agriculture-Nutrition Advantage , a collaboration of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) to investigate and promote greater linkages between agriculture and nutrition, using gender as a major factor to understand hunger and solutions.

For more information, visit http://www.thp.org/, http://www.icrw.org/, and http://www.wfp.org/.

What's Wrong with Business as Usual:

Why Development Efforts Fail

Conventional anti-hunger strategy says:

• Hunger is about having enough food.
• In order to have enough food, agricultural production must increase.
• The way to increase agricultural production is to teach people better farming techniques.
• The most important resource is money to fund programs that teach more farmers better techniques. If the money runs out, the program ends.

The Green Revolution

In 1970, Dr. Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for research and programs that drastically increased food production in India and East Asia. His efforts were called the "Green Revolution". Once the Green Revolution took root, it was thought that hunger would be eradicated within a few years. Instead, even with national and world surpluses of food, there are now 840 million hungry people, 773 million of whom suffer from chronic hunger that has been passed down through families for generations.

The example of India

India was considered to be one of Dr. Borlaug's greatest triumphs. According to Dr. Borlaug's agricultural productivity standards, India is a success. The nation now stores and exports more than 40 million tons of grain each year. India has more than enough food to feed its people. Yet India has the highest number of hungry people in the world. Why?

The Asian Enigma

In 1992, a team of UNICEF researchers addressed the conundrum of India's food surpluses and high rates of hunger and malnutrition in a report titled "The Asian Enigma". They concluded:

• "In the public imagination, the home of the malnourished child is sub-Saharan Africa ... Just over 30% of Africa's children are underweight, but the corresponding figure for South Asia is over 50%."
• The problem could not be one of food availability or government neglect. "The Government of India, for example, has sustained the largest effort in history to improve nutritional standards - through the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme, which was started over 20 years ago and now operates in 400,000 of the country's 600,000 villages."
• "In all countries and cultures, low birth weight is the best single predictor of malnutrition; birth weights below 2,500 grams have been found to be very closely associated with poor growth not just in infancy but throughout childhood. And it is when we close in on this subject that we find the first really significant clues to the South Asian enigma."
• "Approximately one third of all babies in India are born with low birth weight. In Bangladesh, the proportion is one half. In sub-Saharan Africa, the proportion is about one sixth (some of which can be put down to malaria). These variations alone go some of the way towards explaining the different rates of child malnutrition in the two regions."
• "Low birth weight indicates that the infant was malnourished in the womb and/or that the mother was malnourished during her own infancy, childhood, adolescence, and pregnancy. The proportion of babies born with low birth weight therefore reflects the condition of women, and particularly their health and nutrition, not only during pregnancy but over the whole of their childhood and young lives."
• "The exceptionally high rates of malnutrition in South Asia are rooted deep in the soil of inequality between men and women."
• "To bring change, a sustained, long-term effort must be made to promote equal freedoms, opportunities, and rights for women - including the right to participate in decision-making both inside and outside the home. Signs of progress along this road will include better health, education, and nutrition for women; a reduced incidence of low birth weight; improved access to basic services; and increasing control over fertility. All of these are priority development goals in their own right - but they are also a means by which child malnutrition might be defeated."

Africa and the Green Revolution

The even less commonly acknowledged gap in the anti-hunger world is why, after 50 years of agricultural programs and investment, Africa's food production continues to decline. Why do these programs continue to fail? The answer is simple.

• The vast majority of agricultural programs in Africa are geared towards men.
• 93% of all Agricultural extension services (government-run agricultural education for farmers) go to men.
• Yet men make up only 20% of Africa's farmers.
• If women perform 80% of the farming in Africa and are systematically bypassed by agricultural knowledge and investment programs as well as most basic education, is it any wonder that agriculture in Africa is in decline?

Development Delivery

The final piece in the puzzle of why traditional development strategies don't work is rooted in the structure of most development programs. The development world, at its very core, is committed to delivering services through government or NGOs that people have not had before. Unfortunately, the delivery of services is the wrong way to bring about a long-term solution to extreme poverty and hunger. It relies too heavily on:

• Agency experts. Effectiveness is measured by outside experts rather than local opinion.
• Funding and management efficiency of the bureaucracy. If the group running the program leaves, the people lose their programs and problems return.
• Highly specialized top-down structures run by careful planning from the very top. The people have no voice or influence over decisions made.

Empowerment

The pitfalls of service-delivery development can be avoided by empowering people to be the primary authors and actors in their own development. This strategy relies on:

• Local understandings of problems. Effectiveness is measured by the people who live in the village.
• The creativity and resourcefulness of local people. Once local people commit to cooperating with one another to find solutions and overcome outside obstacles, the need for outside funding or management drops sharply. In other words, there is no exit strategy because the people running the programs are the people who live in the village.
• Local synergistic projects that affect the lives of people in the village as well as neighboring villages. Everyone interested in the well-being of the village has some power to influence the outcome.

Success

Certain NGOs have committed to empowerment and the inclusion of women as central to their development strategy. Groups that incorporate these two elements turn out to have the more successful and cost-efficient outcomes than any of the major top-down agencies. World Manna is committed to raising awareness of and resources for:

• Groups that empower women as key change agents in the fight against hunger
• Groups that empower women and men to be the authors of their own development.
• Groups that can demonstrate proven results in finding a long-term solution to hunger.

Hunger in the United States

Hunger: A Nationwide Problem (Source: National Anti-Hunger Organizations)

• 35 million Americans are threatened by hunger every year.
• Of the 35 million people threatened by hunger in the U.S., 13 million of them are children.
• 11.1 percent of all U.S. households ( 12 million households) cannot guarantee that all members of the household will have enough nutritionally adequate food to eat every day. This situation is known as food insecurity.
• Among industrialized countries, the United States is the only nation with widespread hunger.

The Future of U.S. Hunger: The Problem Worsens

• Since 1999, food insecurity has increased by 3.9 million individuals (Food Research and Action Center).
• From 1999 to 2002, 2.8 million more adults and over one million more children became food insecure (Food Research and Action Center).
• According to a study conducted by Washington University at least 42 percent of the U.S. population will deal with food insecurity during their lifetime (Share Our Strength).
• 51 percent of Americans between the ages of 20 and 65 will need to use food stamps at some time in their lives (Share Our Strength).

Poverty: The Trap for Too Many (Source: National Anti-Hunger Organizations)

• 35 million Americans live below the poverty line, the same number of people who are threatened by hunger each year.
• 14 million Americans live below half of the poverty line.
• The average purchasing power of the minimum wage today is 30 percent lower than it was in the 1970s.
• More than half of poor people who rent their residence spend more than 50 percent of their earnings on rent.

Poverty and Hunger: When Food Comes Last

• More than 40 million men, women, and children have no health insurance in the U.S. These people must often choose between health care and food: a dangerous choice either way (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).
• Of all children in low-income working families eligible for child care subsidies, only 14 percent receive them (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).
• In 1998, 5.6 million households could not pay the full amount of their rent or mortgage (U.S. Census Bureau).

For more information, visit http://www.hungercenter.org/NAHO%20Blueprint.pdfor http://www.shareourstrength.org/.

Failing Hungry People:

Anti-Hunger Programs that Don't Go Far Enough

The National School Lunch Program: Summertime is Hungry Time

• The National School Lunch Program is available to 92 percent of students in the United States. 56 percent of these students participate in the program (Institute for Research on Poverty).
• Approximately 47 percent of all school lunches are served to children who qualify for free (families below 1.35 of the poverty line) or reduced-price lunch (families below 1.85 of the poverty line) (Institute for Research on Poverty).
• During the school year, 16 million low-income children receive free or reduced-price lunches daily (National Anti-Hunger Organizations) (Institute for Research on Poverty).
• However, during the summer only 3 million low-income children receive subsidized meals through the Summer Food Service Program or other assistance making hunger during the summer months a serious reality for most children (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).
• In addition, only 7 million low-income children receive free or reduced-price breakfasts during the school year. Increasing funding of the breakfast program could mean better nutrition for 9 million low-income children (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).

Foods Stamps: Not Enough Money

• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 1998, the average family of four spent $554.75 per month on food.
• However, in 2004, the maximum monthly food stamp benefit for a family of four is $471 per month or $1.31 per person per meal (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).
• Most Food Stamp participants do not receive the maximum benefit because the program assumes that households can contribute one-third of their income toward food purchases (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).
• The average per-person monthly Food Stamp Benefit is $84 per month or $0.93 per meal (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).
• However, supermarkets are scarce in low-income rural and urban communities. In addition, prices at existing supermarkets in poor neighborhoods are typically higher than in middle income communities (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).

Food Stamps: Not Enough Access

• In 2001, America's Second Harvest conducted a study showing that their emergency food provider network served 23 million people in a year including more than 9 million children.
• Almost 75 percent of the 23 million people were eligible for food stamps. Yet only 30 percent of the emergency food recipients participated in the food stamp program.
• The study revealed approximately 10 million food stamp-eligible people who were not receiving them.
• Of the emergency food recipients who had not applied for food stamps, 37 percent believed they were ineligible, 34 percent found the program too difficult to apply for, and 7 percent chose not too apply because of the stigma associated with the program.

Emergencies Every Day

• The use of emergency food pantries and other emergency assistance has increased significantly in the past few years.
• From 1997 to 2001, America's Second Harvest experienced a 9 percent increase in emergency food recipients (Food Research and Action Center).
• In December 2003, the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported that requests for emergency food assistance had increased an average of 17 percent across 25 cities in the previous year.
• According to the National Anti-Hunger Organizations, emergency food pantries have become one of the ways that many low-income families make it through the month (Food Research and Action Center).

For more information visit http://www.frac.org/or http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/irp.

The Face of Hunger in the United States

Who are the hungry? (Source: National Anti-Hunger Organizations)

• More than 40 percent of people living below the poverty line are food insecure.
• 16.5 percent of all households with children are food insecure.
• More than 10 percent of all married couples with children are food insecure.
• More than 30 percent of single mothers with children are food insecure.
• More than 10 percent of women living alone and more than 11 percent of men living alone are food insecure.
• More than 5 percent of households with elderly members are food insecure.

Hunger and Race

• More than 20 percent of African-American households are food insecure (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).
• Almost 25 percent of Latino households are food insecure (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).
• Almost 10 percent of white households are food insecure (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).
• According to a Washington University in St. Louis study, more than 85 percent of African-Americans will use food stamps at some point in their lives (Share our Strength).

For more information, visit http://www.hungercenter.org/NAHO%20Blueprint.pdfor http://www.shareourstrength.org/.

The Impacts of Hunger:

The Case for Action

Hunger and Health (Source: Food Research Action Center)

• Low-income hungry children suffer from two to four times as many individual health problems , such as unwanted weight loss, fatigue, headaches, irritability, inability to concentrate and frequent colds, as low-income children whose families do not experience food shortages.
• Iron-deficiency anemia in children can lead to adverse health effects such as developmental and behavioral disturbances that can affect children's ability to learn to read or do mathematics, and increased susceptibility to lead poisoning. Anemia remains a significant health problem among low-income children, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
• Pregnant women who are undernourished are more likely to have low-birth weight babies. These infants are more likely to suffer delays in their development and are more likely to have behavior and learning problems later in life.

WIC: Early Nutrition Works

• The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides food and nutritional advice to low-income women, and infants and children up to age 5, who are income eligible and are nutritionally at risk (Institute for Research on Poverty).
• WIC has been shown to reduce the incidence of low birth weight and improve children's diets (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).
• According to a General Accounting Office report, every $1 provided in federal WIC benefits to pregnant women saves approximately $3 in Medicaid and other health care costs (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).
• According to a separate study conducted by the Institute for Research on Poverty, children who participate in WIC at age 4 have a significantly reduced probability of being at risk for obesity later in life.

Hunger and Economic Productivity

• According to the Tufts University Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition Policy, under nutrition not only a detrimentally affects the cognitive development of children, it results in lost knowledge, brainpower, and productivity for the nation (Food Research Action Center).
• According to the National Anti-Hunger Organizations, "Workers are more productive when they are not worrying about how they will feed their children."
• Every $1 in federally funded food stamp benefits generates almost $2 in local economic activity (National Anti-Hunger Organizations).
• Hunger and malnutrition exacerbate chronic and acute diseases and speed the onset of degenerative diseases among the elderly. This not only leads to an unnecessary decrease in the quality of life for many older people, but also increases the cost of health care in the United States (Food Research Action Center).

For more information, visit http://www.frac.org/, http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/irp, or http://www.hungercenter.org/NAHO%20Blueprint.pdf.

Internet Partner:

"As co-chair of the Millennium Project Hunger Task Force, I give my full support for WorldManna. WorldManna will not only raise funds necessary for ground-level project implementation, but also, raise international awareness of the enormous worldwide hunger problem."
- Pedro Sanchez, Co-Chair, UN Millennium Project Hunger Task Force & Director of Tropical Agriculture, The Earth Institute at Columbia University

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