29 posts categorized "Assets for the Poor"

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.

Improving nutrition among children is essential to the future of the United States. Unfortunately, childhood hunger and poor nutrition is not among the frequently-discussed issues of this primary season. 

Before the “First in the South” primary – South Carolina’s on January 21-- the candidates would do well to read the 2012 Hunger Report to hear about childhood hunger from South Carolina resident and public health expert Ed Frongillo:

“The idea that children are somehow protected from food insecurity by parents is a myth,” says Frongillo, professor of public health at the University of South Carolina. “Children are aware of the inadequate quantity or quality of food, the struggles that adults are going through to meet food needs, and the limitations of resources for meeting those needs.” 

The effects of multiple hardships on children have been well documented by Frongillo, Chilton and her colleagues at Children’s HealthWatch, and researchers elsewhere—and portrayed more bluntly in the images and words of Witnesses to Hunger. Violence, evictions, parental anxiety rising to crescendo as the month comes to an end and the refrigerator empties—the list goes on.

There is only so much any one program can do to soften the effects of these problems on children. But an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that SNAP lifts more families with children out of poverty than any other assistance program except the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). About half of all Americans will receive SNAP benefits at some point before age 20. Among African-Americans, the figure is 90 percent.

The EITC offers a tax refund, a lump sum payment that comes once a year and is ideal for paying down debt, fixing a busted car, dealing with a lingering medical problem, or other such expenses. Low-income working families find it difficult or impossible to budget for these items, because all their resources are simply consumed by day-to-day needs.

SNAP and other nutrition programs, on the other hand, come through for low-income families all year long. They also help the many people who have short-lived scrapes with hunger without experiencing the other hardships of poverty. This is why programs such as SNAP are so vital to meeting the needs of all families, regardless of the harshness of their environment.

Good nutrition is essential, while hunger and malnutrition before age 2 cause harm that is generally irreversible. In addition to providing foods needed for a healthy pregnancy and early childhood, WIC includes nutrition education and access to health care. The program has been proven to reduce rates of fetal mortality and low birth weight and to enhance the nutritional quality of a baby’s diet.

A landmark study in 1991 showed that every dollar spent on WIC saves the government between $1.77 and $3.13 in Medicaid costs for newborns and their mothers. The findings in the study and the strong support for the program from doctors and other medical professionals contributed to bipartisan support for steady increases in WIC funding to ensure that no family would be denied participation. But 20 years later—in spite of volumes of additional research that confirms the value of WIC—it seems that ideological differences among elected officials threaten funding for a cost-effective program with broad public support (94 percent in a 2010 study).

Cutting WIC, SNAP, and other nutrition programs goes against everything we know about the value of preventive care in saving on long-term healthcare costs.

Nutrition programs are one of the most cost-effective ways to control rising healthcare costs, which in the long run are a much greater threat to the nation’s economy than the cost of nutrition programs. Hunger makes people more vulnerable to chronic health problems. Intermittent hunger also contributes to binge eating and overeating to cope with stress and depression. Hunger in babies wreaks havoc on their metabolism and makes them susceptible to obesity later in life. And hunger among children affects cognitive development and leads to lower academic achievement.

Read more on the issue “Women and Children First” from the 2012 Hunger Report.

+The 2012 Hunger Report is available at www.hungerreport.org.

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

During their June 2011 meeting in Paris, the agriculture ministers of the G-20 countries highlighted the vital role of global agriculture—both now and for the future. In the Ministerial Declaration - Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture - the Ministers also acknowledged that strong global governance is an indispensable element for achieving food security, nutrition, and security, and called for greater policy coherence.

These are good first steps. A lot more is needed urgently.

According to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), food prices have now reached peak levels not seen since the 1970s as maize (corn), wheat, and sugar prices have doubled or tripled over the last year. The sudden spikes in staple food prices that began in 2007 have ushered in an era of high prices combined with volatility. These conditions affect all families, but especially those who are poor—because poor people spend so much of their entire incomes, often 50 percent to 70 percent, on food. It is very difficult for them to adjust to rapid price increases because there is little discretionary spending in the household budget. There are also indirect economic costs. When food prices increase and families have less to spend on other goods and services, there is further weakening of already fragile local and national economies. In many low-income countries, high food prices are a major direct contributor to hunger and poverty.

Food Prices in Somalia—Price Changes (June 2010 - June 2011)

Source: FAO GIEWS

Large changes in family income due to price swings such as these can reduce children’s consumption of key nutrients during the first 1, 000 days of life from conception- leading to a permanent reduction of their future earning capacity, increasing the likelihood of future poverty and thus slowing the economic development process.

Given the complex web of factors that affect global food security, international organizations and the governments of both developed and developing countries must use a comprehensive approach to prevent a food crisis from reoccurring.

This week, on November 3-4, G-20 leaders will meet in Cannes, where they must find ways to deal with the increasing global food price volatility that is hurting poorer countries. At Cannes, the G-20 leaders should:

• Commit to providing more resources for investment in agriculture or at least to honoring their promises to fund the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP)
• Look to institutional development and assist Africa in the development of privately-held commodity exchanges;
• Discuss the links between biofuel policies and food prices, with a view to mitigating the impact of biofuels on food prices;
• Agree to avoid export restrictions on food;
• Make progress toward liberalizing trade in agriculture and reducing the most distortionary aspects of tariff escalation and non-tariff barriers.

A food-security strategy that relies on a combination of increased small holder productivity in agriculture, greater policy predictability and general openness to trade will be more effective to addressing global food security.

Former presidents John Agyekum Kufuor and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have been selected to jointly receive the 2011 World Food Prize for their personal commitment and visionary leadership while serving as the presidents of Ghana and Brazil, respectively. Their exemplary leadership demonstrates the crucial role of effective policies, proper institutional foundations, and partnerships in driving development progress.

Under President Kufuor's leadership, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African country to meet Millennium Development Goal 1 – by cutting in half both the proportion of its people suffering from hunger and the proportion living on less than $1 a day. Ghana saw a reduction in its poverty rate from 51.7 percent in 1991 to 26.5 percent in 2008, while hunger decreased from 34 percent in 1990 to 9 percent in 2004.

President Kufuor’s economic reforms, including the Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy, provided incentives and strengthened public investments in the agriculture and food sector — the backbone of Ghana’s economy — which grew at a rate of 5.5 percent between 2003 and 2008. Growth in the agricultural sector drove expansion in the national economy, with GDP quadrupling by 2008.

Under President Kufuor, the Agricultural Extension Service was reactivated and special attention paid to educating farmers on best practices. As a result, Ghana’s cocoa production doubled between 2002 and 2005. Production of food crops such as maize, cassava, yams, and plantains, as well as livestock production, also increased significantly.

The Ghana School Feeding Program launched by President Kufuor provided one nutritious locally produced meal a day for school children in kindergarten to junior high school (ages 4 through 14). By ensuring nutritious food at school, the program dramatically reduced the level of chronic hunger and malnutrition while improving school attendance. By the end of 2010, more than 1 million primary school children were participating and benefiting from this program.

Photo: Office of former President John Kufuor

Ghana’s political stability, economic reforms, agricultural development, and significant reduction of hunger and poverty led to an award of $547 million from the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation in 2006. The Kufuor government applied the entire grant toward modernizing agriculture for rural development, increasing the production and productivity of high-value cash and food staple crops, and raising farmers' incomes.

In Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made a commitment that fighting hunger and poverty would be a top priority of his government. He called upon all elements of Brazilian society to embrace his goals of ensuring three meals a day for all citizens, alleviating poverty, enhancing educational opportunities for children, and achieving greater inclusion of poor people in society.

President Lula da Silva’s national initiatives — embodied in his Zero Hunger strategy — were well aligned with the Millennium Development Goals. During his tenure, MDG 1 was exceeded before the 2015 deadline, as Brazil reduced by half its proportion of hungry people and also reduced the percentage of Brazilians living in extreme poverty from 12 percent in 2003 to 4.8 percent in 2009.

More than 10 government ministries were focused on the expansive Zero Hunger programs, which provided greater access to food, strengthened family farms and rural incomes, and increased school enrollment among children of primary school age. President Lula da Silva encouraged state and municipal governments to work together with civil society and the private sector--a strategy that was central to the rapid and significant decrease in the levels of poverty and hunger across the country.

Zero Hunger quickly became one of the most successful food and nutritional security policies in the world through its broad network of programs, including the Bolsa Familia Program, the Food Purchase Program, and the School Feeding Program.

Photo: Amy Margolies, Congressional Hunger Center

The Bolsa Familia Program, set up to provide cash aid to poor families, has been a major contributor to the reduction of poverty. Another important pillar of Zero Hunger was the Food Purchase Program, which linked local production directly with expanding food consumption and contributed to rural development by acquiring food directly from smallholder farmers. Distribution of food to poor families was through public schools, community restaurants, assisted living facilities, daycare centers, and related organizations. 

The national School Feeding Program has had a far-reaching impact on reducing child malnutrition by providing nutritious meals to children in all grades of Brazilian public schools. In 2010, 47 million students were being served and a minimum of 30 percent of the food was being supplied by local farms. Child malnutrition fell 61.9 percent between 2003 and 2009, and all age groups improved their access to quality food.

We can end hunger and poverty in our time!

Today, more than 13 million people in the Horn of Africa region are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance. Emergency support is vital right now, as the crisis is expected to worsen in the coming months- escalating malnutrition, food insecurity, and displacement of people. According to the U.N, 750,000 people in Somalia are at risk of dying if they do not receive urgent intervention.

U.N. estimates indicate that the financial need for immediate, short-term drought relief assistance is $2.4 billion. While international appeals have resulted in $1.4 billion in pledges, there is still a gap of $1 billion.

Addressing short-term needs for these millions of people also calls for funding long-term recovery efforts- through programs such as Feed the Future and the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP). These initiatives aim to boost the resilience of communities by emphasizing the importance of agriculture and Scaling up Nutrition (SUN) to build healthy societies- so that humanitarian crises do not become cyclical. Reducing chronic hunger is essential to build a foundation for investments in health, education and economic growth.

Last week, the World Bank increased its support to the countries in the Horn of Africa that are facing a severe drought and conflict in Somalia. The revised World Bank allocation represents nearly four times the more than $500 million it initially announced in July. The allocation is based on a preliminary needs assessments conducted by Bank disaster experts in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somali Refugee camps and Uganda.

The resources will be allocated over a three-phase response period, which includes: rapid response ($288 million) in fiscal year 2012 (ends June 30), economic recovery ($384 million) through fiscal year 2014, and drought resilience ($1.2 billion) in the long-term.

Last week, the United Nations General Assembly convened a High-Level Meeting on preventing and controlling non-communicable diseases (NCDs), especially in low- and middle-income countries.

The September 19-20 meeting is the second-ever U.N. High-Level Meeting on a threat to global health (the first was held a decade ago on HIV/AIDS). Organizers called it a "once in a generation" chance to tackle the projected global surge in NCDs.

Non-communicable diseases—such as heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory disease—cause more than 63 percent of all deaths worldwide, or 36 million deaths a year. Projections by the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate that the global burden of NCDs will rise quickly in the next two decades; NCDs will cause as many as 52 million deaths a year by 2030, according to WHO’s 10 Facts about NCDs.

Image Credit: Faustine Wabwire/ Bread for the World Institute

NCDs are often thought of as diseases of the wealthy world, where fatty foods, sedentary lifestyles, and consumption of tobacco and alcohol have become part of normal life for many. But in recent decades, the risk factors—and therefore the illnesses—have become far more prevalent in low-income countries. NCDs are often even more dangerous in these contexts than in developed countries, since access to doctors and medicines is limited and prevention efforts are still in their infancy.

 A new report released by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs just before the High-Level Meeting calls on the agriculture and food sectors to help mitigate the increase in NCDs. The report also identifies new opportunities for health and agriculture programs to work together to promote better health. Leaders who participated in the High-Level Meeting reiterated that policies to help meet health goals are particularly important in agriculture, food production, and other key sectors. They urged a multi-sectoral approach to preventing NCDs since their causes are varied and interrelated.

WHO’s recommendations for population-wide interventions include raising taxes on tobacco products and banning tobacco advertising and smoking in public places; raising taxes on alcohol and enforcing bans on alcohol advertising; reducing salt intake; replacing trans-fats in foods with polyunsaturated fats; promoting public awareness about diet and physical activity; and delivering hepatitis B vaccinations. Primary health-care interventions include counseling, multi-drug therapy, and screening and early treatment for cervical and breast cancers.

“It will take each and every person to do something about it -- it can’t be the government alone, or the private sector alone.”  Tobeka Madiba-Zuma, South African First Lady.

Today the Annie E. Casey Foundation released its annual Kids Count Data Book. The newest edition of the most comprehensive resource available on the state of the nation’s children tells a sad story of the recession’s effects on children in our country.

Some striking examples from the data:

• Nearly 8 million children have at least one parent who is unemployed--double the number of 2007.
• There are 7.7 million children with no health insurance, along with 12 million parents.
• Since 2007, 5.3 million children have been affected by foreclosure.
• In 2005, 29 percent of families with children were considered “asset poor,” meaning that their total assets (liquid and non-liquid) added up to less than three months of poverty-level income. By 2009, the percentage of families with children who were asset poor had jumped to 37 percent.

These data are in line with trends from the past decade that show widening levels of inequality. Before the recession, low-income households were not benefiting from economic growth as middle- and high-income families were.  “The official child poverty rate,” the Casey Foundation reports, “which is a conservative measure of economic hardship, increased 18 percent between 2000 and 2009, essentially returning to the same level as the early 1990s.”

There were, however, improvements in five indicators of child well-being: the infant mortality rate, child death rate, teen death rate, teen birth rate, and percentage of teens who are neither in school nor high school graduates.

The Casey Foundation recommends six ways for policymakers to support struggling families:

• Strengthen and modernize unemployment insurance and promote foreclosure prevention and remediation efforts.
• Preserve and strengthen existing programs that supplement poverty-level wages, offset the high cost of child care, and provide health insurance coverage for parents and children.
• Promote savings and asset protection and help families gain financial knowledge skills.
• Promote responsible parenthood and ensure that mothers-to-be receive prenatal care.
• Ensure that children are developmentally ready to succeed in school.
• Promote reading proficiency by the end of third grade.

The new edition of the Data Book is supported by an interactive website that enables users to search the national and state-level data collected in the book. 

Nearly 15 percent of all Americans participate in SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly food stamps), according to the newly-released U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) figures for May 2011. That’s a record 45,753,078 people.

While many argue that SNAP spending is “out of control,” two examples illustrate that the program is working as it should be—serving more people during economic hard times:

• As poverty and unemployment have increased, the number of participants has also gone up since the beginning of the recession in December 2007.
• The May 2011 figures include people affected by tornadoes in Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia, who received benefits under SNAP’s disaster program.

Bread for the World members have consistently supported a strong SNAP program that is accessible to all who are eligible. In many states, eligibility requires an income of less than 130 percent of the poverty level—for example, an individual’s income must be less than $14,088 a year.

In its article “The Struggle to Eat,” The Economist reports that less than 10 percent of SNAP participants also participate in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a cash-payment program for low-income people. The largest group of SNAP participants is low-wage workers and their children. (In fact, children alone make up 50 percent of all beneficiaries). The article adds that the average participating family has only about $100 in savings or valuables.   

A politically contentious word. A word that many governments shy away from. A word associated with failure that becomes fixed in the international news agenda, bringing continued bad publicity.

The F-word is Famine.

The current crisis in the Horn of Africa, triggered by drought, instability, and high food prices, is affecting at least 12.4 million people. The United Nations has declared two regions of southern Somalia—southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle--famine areas. No respite is expected in the near future as the Horn of Africa-wide food crisis continues to worsen.

Mark Bowden, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, cautioned that inaction now means that famine could spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, as both infectious disease outbreaks and poor harvests due to lack of rainfall continue.

What is a famine?

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), a famine means that these conditions coexist:

• At least 20 percent of households face acute food shortage and have no means of coping with them.
• Acute malnutrition rates among children exceed 30 percent.
• More than two people in 10,000 die every day. (See map)

The U.N. has reported that malnutrition rates in Somalia are currently the highest in the world, with peaks of 50 percent in some southern areas. In southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle, acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 percent; in some areas, deaths of children under five are exceeding 6 per 10,000 per day.

They didn’t deserve to die

So far, 11,000 people are reported to have died in the past 45 days. The inexcusable thing about this crisis is that it could have been significantly mitigated. For months, the Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) pointed to an impending famine. Crops dried up, livestock died, and desperation spread--but these went unheeded. Now, drought has forced a fourth of Somalia’s 7.5 million people to flee their communities in hopes of finding help in neighboring countries.

The importance of promoting community stability and resilience cannot be overemphasized. Multi-sectoral programming to address the impacts of limited food availability, high food prices, asset losses, and malnutition, is imperative. As I have stressed in an earlier blog, it is far more cost-effective to target assistance in building agricultural and economic systems that are sustainable in the long run. It’s better and cheaper to prevent calamities than to respond to hunger emergencies.

Often, though, funds for preparedness and contingency planning are in short supply while large amounts of money go to post-disaster response. For instance, despite early warnings in November 2010, by March of 2011, the World Food Program remained 60 percent underfunded, and had to cut back its feeding programs in Somalia and Ethiopia.

Investing in long-term development requires long-term, sustained commitment from national governments and the international donor community. Yet donor governments are held responsible by taxpayers to show that their efforts are in fact producing results--something that takes time and can become politically contentious.

What we forget is the haunting fact that we have only two options: to pay less now, or to pay dearly later.

Recently Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially launched Feed the Future in Tanzania.

In her address to a group of Tanzanian women farmers, Clinton pointed out that nutrition is closely connected to agricultural development. She said that “profound transformation” could occur in Tanzania’s fertile southern region, “because where women learn the best ways to grow and cultivate their own nutritious food which they use to feed their children and sell at market, we see progress.” She added: “I was pleased to hear that already the diversity of crops here is making a difference in the nutritional status of your children.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks with Tanzanian women farmers at Mlandizi Farm Women's Cooperative in Mlandizi, Tanzania, on June 12, 2011. State Department photo

During her visit, Clinton also recorded a video address to participants in 1,000 Days to Scale Up Nutrition for Mothers and Children: Building Political Will, co-hosted June 13 by Bread for the World Institute and leading Irish development organization Concern Worldwide.

In the message, now available on the USAID website, Clinton emphasized the importance of nutrition for the 1,000-day “window of opportunity” from pregnancy to a child’s second birthday. The evidence is clear: malnutrition during this period causes damage to physical and cognitive development that is largely irreversible. Clinton also announced the redesigned thousanddays.org, which will enable the global nutrition community to share ideas, lessons learned, and notes from the field.

The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) has also just announced that Four countries will receive a total of $160 million in direct funding to support the agriculture and food security plans that they are already developing.

Feed the Future, GAFSP, and other recent global food security initiatives recognize not only that poverty is the cause of hunger, but also that hunger and malnutrition are, in turn, major causes of poverty.

It is far harder for hungry people to escape poverty:

• They have less energy for physical activity, so their work is generally less productive. Yet their labor is usually the only asset they have.
• Their capacity for physical and intellectual development is diminished. Hungry children grow more slowly, encounter more trouble learning, and have lower school attendance and achievement. Hunger compromises investments in education
• Hungry people have higher rates of disease and premature death, because hunger causes serious long-term damage to human health.
• Hunger passes from generation to generation: hungry mothers give birth to underweight infants who start life with a handicap.
• Hunger contributes to social and political instability, undermining governments’ capacity for effective efforts to reduce poverty.

Attention to both hunger and poverty—and to both agriculture and nutrition—must be part of any plan to reduce either hunger or poverty in a sustainable way.