52 posts categorized "Hunger Report"

The new government of President Otto Perez Molina has initiated a program called “Hunger Zero” to combat chronic malnutrition in Guatemala.  Despite being a so-called Middle Income Country (a rung above the poorest countries, as measured by the size of the national economy), chronic malnutrition remains a persistent problem, with rates in certain areas as high as those in the poorest countries in Africa.

According to the head of the Food and Nutritional Security Secretariat (SESAN), Luis Enrique Monterroso, the project will begin in the hardest-hit municipalities and then expand to all 166 municipalities affected significantly by hunger. Included in the Hunger Zero program are nutrition interventions focused on the 1,000 Days "window of opportunity," from pregnancy until a child's second birthday. The government has also created the Dignity Triangle program, which focuses on food availability, access, and nutrition education.

Bread for the World is a strong supporter of the 1,000 Days Partnership and the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement, which advocate for improved nutrition in pregnant women and children during this critical period. At this stage of life, the effects of malnutrition can cause irreversible damage to brain development, cognitive abilities, and resistance to diseases. Guatemala is also a supporter of these initiatives, which share key objectives with the new government’s anti-hunger programs.

The recently appointed head of SESAN happens to be a friend of Bread for the World! When Bread hosted the SUN Civil Society Working Group meeting that followed our 2011 National Gathering, Luis Enrique was there representing his country. His skills and commitment to ending hunger and malnutrition in Guatemala were evident to Otto Perez during his election campaign. He was asked to head this very important office, which is responsible for coordinating the efforts of 13 government ministries and reports directly to Guatemala's Vice President.

Todd Post, editor of Bread for the World Institute's Hunger Report, and I recently traveled to Guatemala and were able to meet with Luis Enrique in his new capacity. He is excited about the challenge before him and expressed his thanks for Bread for the World's support in giving him the opportunity to learn about SUN, which is just getting started in Guatemala.  He has already set an ambitious goal: reducing hunger by 10 percent within four years. He has also begun to work on Hunger Zero by identifying the 166 most malnourished of the country's 366 municipalities.

Guatemala is a country that faces many challenges – social, political, and economic. It is also a country that has correctly identified addressing the root causes of malnutrition as key to its future success.  Let’s follow the developments there and wish “our man in Guatemala” great success!

    Scott Bleggi is a senior international policy analyst with Bread for the World Institute.

Net migration is the net total of migrants during the period, that is, the total number of immigrants less the annual number of emigrants, including both citizens and noncitizens. Source: World Bank

 The H-2A agricultural guest worker program, although dysfunctional, will probably grow. The beginnings of a framework exist that envisions the H-2A program as a way to benefit both growers in the United States and sending communities in Mexico.

An interactive data timeline on net migration accompanies this excerpt from the 2012 Hunger Report on the relationship between migration and development:

Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) works on guest worker recruitment, education, and training issues on the Mexican side of the border—but it doesn’t address the impact of the United States’ H-2A agricultural guest worker program on the Mexican communities that send these workers. In fact, this is one of the most under-analyzed parts of the H-2A program. It is rare for anyone, including the Mexican government, to raise the concerns of sending communities. The reasons Mexicans leave home to become farm workers in the United States are often not part of this or most other discussions of immigration reform.

But there are the beginnings of a framework that envisions the H-2A program as a way to benefit both growers in the United States and sending communities in Mexico. The bi-national Independent Agricultural Workers’ Center (CITA by its Spanish acronym) is pioneering such a model; it plans to integrate the H-2A program with Mexican rural development efforts. 

Farm worker advocate Chuck Barrett founded CITA along the Arizona-Mexico border in 2007 to serve as a “matchmaker” between prospective Mexican guest workers and U.S. growers. For the past several years, CITA has been focused on helping workers on both sides of the border: in Mexico with the recruitment process, and in the United States with disputes between workers and growers.

CITA helps growers recruit workers in Mexico and assists in getting growers’ H-2A applications—which Barrett says are notoriously onerous—through the Department of Labor and other agencies. It also provides services to Mexican guest workers, including financial literacy information, low-interest loans to pay for guest worker visas, psychological counseling, and education on the guest worker system. In addition to the fees it earns from growers, CITA is supported by organizations such as Catholic Relief Services and the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

Barrett is hoping to expand the CITA model to become self-sustaining in rural communities throughout Mexico, saying that this expansion would help Mexican migrant-sending communities obtain “some beginning of control over migration, replacing illegal out-migration with legal migration.” According to this model, communities would be trained to facilitate worker recruitment, prescreen workers, and expedite the visa process—all tasks for which U.S. growers now pay CITA a fee. “Because they would be doing the training and passport process … they [Mexican rural areas] will get a portion to be used by the community to fulfill their own development objectives,” Barrett said. 

While Barrett—like almost everyone else—said that the H-2A program is dysfunctional, he also believes that its use will increase. “Whether people like it or not … H-2A is going to be a growing process,” he said. “Every version of AgJOBS includes an expansion of H-2A. I see the next couple of years as a window of opportunity to find alternatives … that are fairer for the workers and more effective for the employers, and also lend themselves … to connecting the migration process to the development process.”

CITA’s concept of connecting its H-2A employer services to rural development in migrant-sending Mexican rural communities is still on the drawing board. But based on the relationships they’ve forged through their outreach to growers and services to workers, Barrett and CITA executive director Janine Duron said that the program can be extended to the source of the immigrant farm worker issue—the poor Mexican communities that provide U.S. growers with both unauthorized and H-2A farm workers. “It’s an amazing relationship that can be built if you have reconciliation rather than adversity,” said Duron.

Reducing migration pressures will require development and job creation throughout Mexico, but poverty and migration are particularly concentrated in the countryside. Although about a quarter of all Mexicans live in rural areas, 60 percent of Mexico’s extremely poor people are rural, and 44 percent of Mexican immigrants come from rural communities. Immigration reform and development assistance need to be linked, particularly for rural Mexico.

After decades of declining support, agriculture and rural development is now re-emerging as a vital development focus. The World Bank’s 2008 World Development Report, Agriculture for Development, states, “Agriculture continues to be a fundamental instrument for sustainable development and poverty reduction.” Research has also found that agriculture is one of the best returns on investment in poverty-reduction spending. Each 1 percent increase in crop productivity in Asia reduces the number of poor people by half a percent. This correlation also holds for middle-income countries such as Mexico.

+ Read more from the 2012 Hunger Report on the issue of Farm Workers and Immigration.

Kate Hagen is Hunger Report project assistant at Bread for the World Institute.

Photo: Laura Sheahen / Catholic Relief Services 

The most important period in human development is the 1,000 days between pregnancy and age 2. Healthy development, particularly brain development, depends on getting enough nutritious food during this window.

Bread for the World is a key advocate for good nutrition during the 1,000 Days. From coordinating the Scaling Up Nutrition / 1,000 Days Civil Society Meeting with Concern Worldwide to launching Women of Faith for the 1,000 Days Movement, Bread is leading the movement to ensure that all children under age 2 have access to the right nutrients to live healthy, productive lives.

What exactly is this 1,000-day window of opportunity? This is how Bread for the World Institute explains it in the 2012 Hunger Report:

The U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) treat hunger and poverty as interdependent problems. The first MDG — dramatically reducing hunger and poverty — measures progress against hunger by gauging how many children remain chronically undernourished.

“Hunger” seems like a simpler concept than “undernutrition,” but it’s most accurate to say that it’s the effects of undernutrition that kill children or limit their potential for the rest of their lives.

Young children need calories to grow and gain weight, but vitamins and minerals matter every bit as much. In developing countries, one-third of all children are stunted or underweight as a result of undernutrition; it is the leading cause of child mortality. Reducing the high rate of undernutrition among children in the developing world is one of the greatest challenges in global health.

The most critical period in human development is the 1,000 days starting at pregnancy and lasting through a child’s second year. Healthy development, particularly brain development, depends on getting the right foods at this critical time. Hunger during this time is catastrophic, because the resulting physical and cognitive damage is lifelong and irreversible.

Early hunger and malnutrition is associated with later problems such as chronic illness and poor school attendance and learning. As adults, the survivors have lower productivity and lifetime incomes, which costs developing countries an estimated 2 to 3 percent of their economic output (Gross Domestic Product).

Until recently, international development programs did not focus much attention on improving the nutritional status of young children. But that has changed since 2008, when a series of reports on early childhood appeared in the leading medical journal The Lancet. The series emphasized the connection between nutrition during the critical 1,000-day window and development outcomes, and showed how practical, inexpensive interventions during this “window of opportunity” can dramatically alter the arc of a person’s life.

The Lancet series appeared at the height of a global hunger crisis driven by dramatic spikes in the prices of staple foods, which forced an additional 100 million people into hunger and led to rioting in a number of countries. In the aftermath, the United Nations formed a High-Level Task Force on Global Food Security. In addition, representatives of the governments and civil societies of dozens of countries came together to prepare a framework for nutrition action based on The Lancet reports. From this effort came the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement to support the action plan.

During a U.N. summit on the MDGs in September 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Irish counterpart launched the “1,000 Days: Change a Life, Change the Future” initiative. 1,000 Days and SUN seek to make nutrition an integral component of development programs. SUN’s plan for accomplishing this has been endorsed by national governments, multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and other international development banks, civil society organizations, development agencies, academics, and philanthropic bodies. During the U.N. event, David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, and Tom Arnold, CEO of Concern Worldwide, committed to convening a follow-up meeting of SUN. This meeting was held June 13, 2011, in Washington, DC, and drew government and civil society representatives from both SUN countries and developed countries. Bread for the World and Concern Worldwide continue to be instrumental in keeping policymakers focused on SUN and the critical importance of the 1,000-day window of opportunity between pregnancy and age 2.

₊Read more from the 2012 Hunger Report’s Chapter 4, Rebalancing Globally.

Kate Hagen is Hunger Report project assistant at Bread for the World Institute.

Human growth and cognitive development depend on getting the right foods in early childhood. Photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl for Bread for the World.

Today, January 26, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, features a series of events on food security and nutrition. Every year, the Forum brings together  global decision makers, country leaders, economic innovators, and representatives of some of the world’s most influential organizations to seek effective solutions to pressing global problems.

Events today highlight the important role of partnerships in ensuring good nutrition during the 1,000-day "window of opportunity" between pregnancy and a child's second birthday. The Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement supports countries in improving nutrition during the 1,000 Days.

SUN's press release notes: “The fact that nutrition is being highlighted as an essential issue at the World Economic Forum is an example of the SUN Movement’s inclusive approach, which recognizes that a range of sector and partners have a role to play in scaling up nutrition….

"Professionals from agriculture, social protection, and education are combining forces as they increasingly see good nutrition as an important part of their programs and an indicator of their success.”

In his piece yesterday in the Huffington Post, Dr. David Nabarro,the U.N. Secretary General's Special Representative for Food Security and Nutrition, says: "The world will be changed forever if every child is well-nourished during their 1,000-day window of opportunity.

"Those of us working to further the SUN movement and our many partners around the world have seen the great potential nutrition has to give children a stronger start at life.

"Now, we are excited that leaders at Davos see an investment in nutrition during those 1,000 days as a tangible -- and achievable -- contribution to a stronger, more stable world for all."

Next week, February 1-2, Bread for the World will host Church Leaders for 1,000 Days, an ecumenical gathering to build the advocacy voice of the church for maternal and child nutrition. For more information, visit www.bread.org/womenoffaith1000days. 

Michele Learner is associate editor for Bread for the World Institute.

The 2012 Hunger Report executive summary is Bread for the World Institute’s overview of the state of hunger.

Tomorrow night, President Obama will deliver his 2012 State of the Union address, laying out his national priorities based on current conditions in the United States.

Will he discuss the 15 percent of Americans who wonder whether they will have enough to eat this month? Will he say it’s a top priority to make sure that no child goes to bed hungry?

2012 is a particularly important year for hungry people in the United States because Congress is scheduled to reauthorize the farm bill, which will define U.S. farm policies for the next five years. The bill shows exactly how much our country values nutritious food for all as a goal of our farm policies.

Bread for the World Institute’s 2012 Hunger Report recommends effective ways for the U.S. government to respond to the agriculture and nutrition challenges of 2012 and beyond. Read an excerpt from the executive summary of the 2012 Hunger Report: Rebalancing Act: Updating U.S. Food and Farm Policies to learn what we hope President Obama will say in the 2012 State of the Union:

The global agricultural system faces many daunting challenges. Seven billion people currently inhabit the Earth, and the population is expected to rise to 9 billion by 2050. Food production must increase as climate change puts additional stress on natural resources. Nearly one billion people around the world suffer from hunger, and in the United States one in four people participate in a federal nutrition program. U.S. food and farm policies absolutely need to be aligned.

The 2012 Hunger Report recommends ways for the federal government to better respond to the agriculture and nutrition challenges of today and tomorrow. Normally change in food and farm policy occurs incrementally. The 2012 Hunger Report calls for bolder, more determined thinking about how U.S. food and farm policies can meet the global and domestic challenges of the 21st century.

Farm policies should significantly increase production of healthy foods. But farm policies alone can’t automatically improve access to nutritious foods for low-income families. Strengthening the nutrition safety net is also critical. Nutrition programs need to do more than provide food for hungry people; they must ensure that healthy food is available to all.

The 2012 Hunger Report recommends ways for U.S. development assistance and food aid programs to work together more efficiently. Food aid programs should follow the lead of Feed the Future—the new U.S. Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative—by focusing more deliberately on improving nutrition outcomes for the most vulnerable people, especially pregnant and lactating women and children under the age of 2. This will help achieve the strongest possible nutrition outcomes with the limited resources available.

On the eve of 2012, Congress is negotiating dramatic cuts in the federal budget. Cuts to programs designed to overcome the effects of poverty are in neither the short- nor the long-term interests of the nation. The recommendations in the2012 Hunger Report are all the more relevant because the budget decisions are so urgent.

+To read more, download the executive summary of the 2012 Hunger Report: Rebalancing Act: Updating U.S. Food and Farm Policy.

Kate Hagen is Hunger Report project assistant at Bread for the World Institute.