26 posts categorized "Hunger Hotspots"

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.

Photo by Flickr user yeowatzup

You’ve probably read about the passing of North Korea’s longtime dictator, Kim Jong-il.  His son, Kim Jong-un, is assumed to succeed him, but not much is known about Kim Jong-un and whether he will continue his father’s legacy of dictatorship, suppressing the economy, and repressing human rights.  As we read the reports this week on the country’s political, economic, and military situation, let’s not forget that North Korea has one of the world’s highest rates of hunger and malnutrition.

In April 2011, the World Food Program (WFP) launched an emergency food aid program in North Korea aimed primarily at women and children following a brutal winter in which traditional food supplies and commercial imports fell short. At that time it was estimated that 3.5 million people were critically short on food because the North Korean government’s Public Distribution System (PDS) stocks were nearly zero. By June 2011, individual cereal rations being distributed were only about 150 grams per day – about a quarter pound.  Can you imagine living on just a bowl of cereal per day?

Overall, malnutrition rates among children in North Korea have gone down over the past 10 years, but one in every three children in the country remains chronically malnourished or “stunted,” meaning they are too short for their age. Furthermore, a quarter of all pregnant and breast-feeding women in North Korea are also malnourished.  North Korean food security experts have determined that even small shock in future food stores could trigger a severe crisis that would be difficult to contain.

The WFP reports current rations provided by the North Korean government meet well less than half of the daily calorific needs for the 68 percent of the 16 million people receiving public food rations through the PDS. People are struggling to find food by alternative means, but they lack purchasing power because of poor economic conditions in a country that remains one of the most isolated in the world.  A major crop and food security assessment mission was undertaken in October 2011.  The results are expected to show that North Korea remains one of the most food-deficit countries in the world.

As news reports continue to focus on North Korea’s political instability, it’s imperative for us to remember the persistent hunger crisis in North Korea and the people’s inability to fight for their right to adequate food for their children. 

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

Two successive droughts in the Horn of Africa have left both farmers and pastoralists unable to produce food for their families. Photo United Nations/Albert Gonzalez Farran.

Durban, South Africa, is currently hosting 30,000 delegates from all over the world, gathered for 12 days of talks organized under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

In one sense, of course, climate change affects everyone since we all live on this planet. But in another sense, it is poor people in developing countries who are suffering most of its effects -- even though they contribute the least to the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change.

As Dr. Kumi Naidoo, international  executive director of Greenpeace, said at the Durban conference, “We are living in a global state of environmental apartheid. Separated along the lines of rich and poor, the rich consume as they please and the poor suffer from their consumption.”

"Environmental apartheid." Dr. Naidoo was for years a leading anti-apartheid activist in his native South Africa -- this is not a comparison he would make lightly.

This year, the most severe hunger emergency in the world is in the Horn of Africa, where 13 million people are at risk and it is believed that at least 50,000 children younger than 5 have already died. The worst suffering is concentrated in Somalia and among Somali refugees who have reached Kenya or Ethiopia.

Is climate change to blame? Oxfam International examined this question in detail in its briefing paper Horn of Africa Drought: Climate Change and Future Impacts on Food Security. The short answer, in the words of the U.K. government's chief scientific adviser, is that "such events [the more frequent and more severe droughts in the Horn] have a higher probability of occurring as a result of climate change."

Oxfam, Bread for the World, and others emphasize that drought does not have to lead to famine. A host of factors collided to produce famine in Somalia -- including  drought, crop failure, widespread deaths among herd animals, continuous conflict, government neglect, deep poverty, lack of transportation infrastructure, and inequality. Other parts of the Horn also experienced the droughts and significant increases in hunger, but nowhere else did droughts lead to full-fledged famine.

It goes without saying that prompt measures to prevent further climate change must be implemented -- easier said than done, as the delegates in Durban must know. Another, even more urgent, part of the global response must be to reduce the vulnerability of poor people in poor countries who are bearing the brunt of the current phase of climate change -- the part that can no longer be prevented.

As the Institute's recently released 2012 Hunger Report points out in a section called “Sustainable, Productive Agriculture amid Climate Change," data from West Africa shows that children born in drought years are far more likely to be malnourished. Using data such as this, analysts calculate that if current trends continue,  climate change could increase child malnutrition by  20 percent by 2050.  Other recent Hunger Reports also offer insight into the connection between climate change and hunger -- and what can be done to break that connection. 

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

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

Rebalancing Act: Updating U.S. Food and Farm Policies, the 2012 edition of Bread for the World Institute's annual Hunger Report, was released today, November 21. This is the Institute's 22^nd annual report. Few of them have been as timely, considering the looming budget cuts Congress is negotiating.

The report argues that U.S. farm policies need to shift toward production of healthy foods. We say bluntly that current farm policies are doing a poor job of contributing to a healthy food system. There is too much support for ingredients used to produce cheap junk foods, and not enough support for foods that promote good health.

The greater share of government support to the farm sector goes to the biggest producers. Smaller producers and producers of healthy foods — i.e., fruits and vegetables — get little or no support. It's been this way for decades, but Americans are expressing more concern than ever about what we're eating and what we're getting for our tax dollars to the farm sector. The local food movement, with its emphasis on "smaller is better," is helping to reshape the farm policy debate. Farm policies are not solely to blame for Americans' low consumption of fruits and vegetables — but U.S. farms don't even produce enough healthy foods for our population to get its recommended daily allowances of vitamins and minerals. We need to ask, what are farm policies really trying to accomplish?

The report is not a diatribe against large-scale farming. We recognize the value of production agriculture in lowering food costs. The biggest beneficiaries of low food prices are low-income people – the people most vulnerable to hunger, who are therefore Bread for the World's main concern. Food production could also be a key component of the country's economic recovery strategy, a potential source of jobs. In tough times with so many people out of work, the hobbling U.S. economy simply can't afford to ignore these possibilities. 

The greatest economic challenge facing the United States, bar none, is the rising cost of health care. Obesity as a contributor to these costs is getting more attention as the problem affects more and more Americans. Hunger, on the other hand, is often overlooked as a health issue—but hungry people are by definition in poor health. Together, the costs of obesity and hunger run into the hundreds of billions of dollars per year. This calls for a much stronger tie between the foods government encourages farmers to produce and the foods government should be encouraging people to eat.

Much of the report is focused on nutrition programs, which should be serving more healthy foods to more than 30 million children (two-thirds of them low-income) who eat school lunch as well as offering incentives for the nation's 45 million SNAP (formerly food stamps) participants to purchase more fruits and vegetables. Farms are, after all, businesses that respond to consumer demand. With some help from government policies, people who would eat healthier if they could afford to could provide farmers with a much larger market to supply.

There are plenty of large-scale fruit and vegetable farmers, but the report doesn't argue that government should transfer to them the support that now goes to large corn and soy farmers. What large-scale fruit and vegetable farmers need is rational U.S. immigration policies. Most of the people who pick the fruits and vegetables we eat are unauthorized immigrants from Mexico and Central America. This is low-paying, backbreaking work that few Americans show an interest in doing. The report looks at the situation of farm workers, emphasizing how much of the food we eat—and should be eating more of—depends on a steady flow of immigrant labor. That labor pool is at risk of vanishing if the federal government doesn't intervene to halt the trend toward repressive state-level immigration policies.

Finally, the report discusses U.S. food and farm policies that affect emergency food aid and agricultural development assistance overseas. Again, the focus is largely on nutrition, particularly for vulnerable groups such as young children and pregnant and nursing women. Good nutrition during the "1,000 Days" period between pregnancy and age 2 is critical to a person's lifelong health and ability to learn. This reality has gotten much more attention in the past few years, as have the simple, cost-effective nutrition actions that can make all the difference – things like promoting exclusive breastfeeding for six months and providing fortified food aid to young survivors of humanitarian disasters. Supporting women's agricultural work is another essential component.

Normally, changes in food and farm policy are made incrementally. Given everything that is going on, though, we need bolder, more determined thinking about how policies can better meet the needs that the world is now facing. The 2012 Hunger Report has plenty of ideas to move us in the right direction.

 +View or order the 2012 Hunger Report at www.bread.org/hungerreport.

Todd Post is senior editor with Bread for the World Institute.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is poised to sign a five-year Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact with Indonesia—the first such compact to include a nutrition component, “Community-Based Nutrition to Reduce Stunting.”

More than 35 percent of Indonesia’s babies and toddlers under age 2 are stunted, meaning they have a highly visible sign of malnutrition--being significantly shorter than average children of their age. There is growing global attention to this age group, often called the 1,000 day window between pregnancy and age 2, because the consequences of malnutrition for such young children are death for some and lifelong, largely irreversible damage to the health and development of those who survive. A higher risk of death in infancy and early childhood, increased susceptibility to infection and illness, and impaired cognitive abilities caused by early nutritional deficiencies have been well documented in a growing body of scientific evidence, dating to 2006 with the Copenhagen Consensus and followed by studies done by the World Bank and by a series of studies by the respected medical journal The Lancet. Research has also found that survivors of early childhood malnutrition complete fewer years of school and are less productive on the job, which causes countries long-term economic loss.

 
Photo credit:  USAID

The 1,000 Days Partnership, on which Bread has reported previously, champions new investments and partnerships to improve nutrition during this critical period.  Indonesia recognized that taking action against malnutrition during the 1,000-day window must be a top national priority. Its five-year national development plan called for a program of prevention.

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, with more than 140 million people living on less than $2 a day. The country’s high prevalence of stunting is a legacy of a health service delivery system that lacks capacity at the local level. The Community-Based Nutrition to Reduce Stunting project will work with communities and health systems to “strengthen the demand for and supply of appropriate services to reduce chronic malnutrition among children.” Designed with the participation of local governments, civil society, and the private sector, it will build on an existing program that involves communities in taking action to improve targeted health, education, and nutrition indicators.  Stunting will be reduced by strengthening community engagement, nutrition and sanitation services delivery, and national awareness and advocacy. The project proposes to reach 1.4 million beneficiaries in rural Indonesia.

The MCC administers Millennium Challenge Account funding. Back in 2002, Bread members were instrumental in persuading Congress to establish the program, which makes multi-year grants to promote inclusive economic growth that reduces poverty. To qualify for MCC funds, countries must be low-income or lower-middle-income (meaning that their per capita incomes are less than about $4,000 a year), and they must satisfy set criteria such as investing in the well-being of their people and fighting corruption.

Bread for the World Institute has long been a champion of increased focus on improving maternal and child nutrition. In our 2009 briefing paper, New Hope for Malnourished Mothers and Children, the Institute noted that the Millennium Challenge Corporation was under-investing in nutrition—especially given the importance of nutrition to economic growth. We are encouraged by Indonesia’s plan for this compact and applaud MCC for taking this important step forward.  We look for additional countries to improve nutrition outcomes, especially in pregnant women and children.

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

According to information released this morning by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET), famine will persist for at least another month in areas of Somalia. Due to the consistent delivery of food aid and emergency supplies since the crisis began, some areas previously have been downgraded from Integrated Food Security and Phase Classification (IPC) 5, meaning “famine”, to IPC Phase 4 “emergency”.

However, according to FEWS NET officials nearly 250,000 people continue to face imminent starvation and death rates, especially among children, remain extremely high, in part due to continuing outbreaks of measles, cholera and malaria. The death toll thus far is “tens of thousands”, and food security in Somalia is the worst since the 1991/92 famine. A continued multi-sectoral response (food, water, sanitation, health, security) is still required and any significant interruption to deliveries will result in a return to famine.

The ongoing famine results from the complete lack of rain during two traditional rainy periods (Oct-Dec 2010, and Apr-Jun 2011) that contributed to crop failures, high levels of animal mortality and very high food prices. While continued, large-scale responses are critical, the flow of local and donated cereals to markets in Somalia indicate that earlier market-based interventions are working.

As we gather with family and friends this Thanksgiving, let’s say a prayer for the return of rain to Somalia and an end to the ongoing crisis there.

Scott Bleggi is the senior international policy analyst in Bread for the World Institute

A Somali woman hands her severely malnourished child to a medical officer of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), an active regional peacekeeping mission operated by the African Union with the approval of the United Nations. Somalia is affected by a severe drought that has ravaged large swaths of the Horn of Africa, leaving an estimated 11 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Photo credit: UN Photo/Stuart Price

The anti-poverty campaign group ONE has released a new short film, “The F Word: Famine is the Real Obscenity,” about the hunger emergency in the Horn of Africa. In my post on August 1, “The F-Word is Famine,” I emphasize what might seem obvious, but is not always acted on: preventing such disasters is better and cheaper than waiting until tens of thousands of young children have died. This is true even though prevention efforts take time, and Bread for the World and many other groups have been making the point that development programs need to produce -- and measure -- results.

The harsh reality is that disasters are bound to happen, especially as climate change continues to put additional pressure on natural resources. We must recognize that reducing the risk they pose to human life is not optional.

Families in poor countries, as in rich ones, need social safety nets against hunger and poverty and a viable “plan B” if their primary means of earning a living fails them. Instability and famine in Somalia continue to disrupt the mobility of pastoralists and their livestock -- which is key to food security in the region. The result is a mass exodus of refugees into neighboring countries, particularly Kenya and Ethiopia. These countries, already themselves affected by the region’s severe drought, must deal with additional strain on their economies’ limited resources.

Kenya’s Ambassador to the United States, Ambassador Elkanah Odembo, will speak at the launch of the 2012 Hunger Report, Rebalancing Act: Updating U.S. Food and Farm Policies, this coming Monday, November 21. The report emphasizes that short-term relief must be linked to building long-term sustainability. This means ensuring that development assistance and food aid programs work together effectively. For example, U.S. food aid programs should dovetail with the Feed the Future model -- which aims to address the root causes of hunger while also establishing long-term solutions through country-owned investment processes.

We cannot achieve food security without investing in agriculture. The report highlights that— in the Horn of Africa as in the rest of the world -- we must invest in an agricultural transformation that builds the resilience of rural livelihoods and minimizes the damage done by future crises. This means support for climate-smart crop production, livestock rearing, fish farming, and forest maintenance practices that enable all people to have year-round access to the nutrition they need, with a special focus on the 1,000 Days between pregnancy and a child’s second birthday. The right nutrition during this 1,000-day window can profoundly improve children’s ability to grow, learn, and work their way out of poverty.

This is not all new, but agricultural development efforts are just beginning to recover from decades of neglect by both national governments and the global community. Keeping the new commitments to agricultural development is what will sustain the momentum that already exists and prevent future famines. It is because of the importance of agriculture on the African continent that the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development established the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) back in July 2003. Under CAADP, member states are moving towards the attainment of Millennium Development Goal One, to cut hunger and poverty by half by 2015.

 +The 2012 Hunger Report will be released Monday, November 21, at www.hungerreport.org.

Faustine Wabwire is a foreign assistance policy analyst with Bread for the World Institute.

Preventing child malnutrition during the 1,000 days from pregnancy to age 2 is vital to ensuring healthy development and avoiding irreversible damage, including diminished intellectual capacity, impaired immune function, shorter height, and impaired vision. Photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl.

Next Monday, November 21, we will release our 2012 Hunger Report, Rebalancing Act: Updating U.S. Food and Farm Policy. Yesterday, Senior Editor Todd Post mentioned here that the report’s timing dovetails with key decisions about farm bill reauthorization. The report also looks at how the United States responds to hunger and malnutrition overseas with food aid and development assistance — a topic practically ripped from the headlines as famine deaths continue in the Horn of Africa.

Did you know that malnutrition in pregnant women, babies, and toddlers up to their second birthdays has lifelong consequences? In the Hunger Report’s Chapter 4, we look at this critical 1,000 Days window and how a growing body of scientific evidence shows that nutritional interventions during this time can save lives and prevent lifelong disability — all in a very cost-effective way.

As health workers and development programs seek to scale up these proven strategies, it’s an opportune time to improve the nutritional value of U.S. food aid, which helps millions of people every year. Many of them are young children who have survived famine, war, or drought.

In the report, we talk about the latest developments in food aid products, the target populations for their use, and how their effectiveness in treating severe acute malnutrition outweighs their slightly higher cost. The newest food aid products — being distributed today in parts of the Horn of Africa — are almost miracle foods. They are densely packed with calories, vitamins, and minerals. Some of them can be produced right in the country where they are needed, which lowers their cost and makes them more readily available. We feature the story of Gustavo, who today is a healthy 2-year-old in Mozambique thanks to timely nutrition interventions. It really is remarkable to see how quickly a child can recover from near-starvation with proper, nutritious food and community-based action.

Improving the nutritional quality of food aid is a daunting challenge in the context of a shrinking federal budget. We look at the physical process of moving food from the United States to starving people overseas, and how food aid is programmed for general distribution or therapeutic feeding. We suggest ways in which costs can be lowered -- such as by adopting local and regional purchase procedures, coordinating aid efforts more closely, and reporting nutrition outcomes so that the most effective food aid products continue to be used.

Chapter 4 also emphasizes that increased support for research in agriculture will be critical to meeting growing global demand for food in the next decades. In fact, we raise questions that cannot be answered without additional funding for research and development — for example, “How can agriculture most effectively improve nutrition in countries with high malnutrition rates?” Building local capacity in production, marketing, storage, and delivery is another key to meeting future food needs. 

If you’re interested in seeing why fighting malnutrition is so important to improving food security and health, then you’ll want to look closely at Chapter 4, “Rebalancing Globally,” when the 2012 Hunger Report is released November 21.

+The 2012 Hunger Report will be released at www.hungerreport.org on Monday, Nov. 21.

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

Bread for the World Institute policy analysts Faustine Wabwire and Scott Bleggi were invited to a roll out of USAID’s new campaign called “FWD”, which stands for Famine, War, and Drought.  They participated in a briefing by USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah and senior White House officials Gayle Smith and Jon Carson on how to help others learn about these issues, and to announce that information from the site may be freely used by individuals in social media and on personal web sites.

Shah addressed two issues that Bread for the World is strongly advocating – improving the nutritional value of food aid provided by the United States and elevating nutrition in Feed the Future programming.  He said food aid is being prepositioned around the world so that it can be delivered more quickly, and new, more nutritious formulations of Corn Soy Blend - the product most often provided in general distribution food aid - are being made available to donor organizations.  USAID’s Feed the Future initiative is a major development assistance effort to reduce poverty and malnutrition by sustainably improving economic, environmental and human security. 

A video produced in cooperation with the AdCouncil was also released faeaturing celebrity advocates:

Forward the information so others can become advocates for famine, war and drought relief in Africa!

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

Remember Y2K, the moment of doom that never arrived? Clocks continued to tick. So much fear and trembling for naught.

A real milestone occurs next Monday, one few seem to be paying attention to and that’s unfortunate, especially because its consequences are serious. On Monday, human number seven billion is scheduled to arrive on Earth. This seems like an opportune moment to at least pause and consider the ramifications of rising population. By 2050, the population is expected to be at 9 billion.

One is tempted to say that population growth is a fizzling time bomb, but I don’t believe that metaphor is accurate. Humans will figure out a way to endure no matter how much we crowd the planet. It will become a more difficult place to thrive for some, but it is already difficult for many, such as the current billion who are chronically hungry.

There are lots of ways to control population growth. Empowering women, supporting family planning are getting lots of attention. Broadly speaking, the best way to control population is through economic development. The poorest 49 countries currently make up 18 percent of the world’s population. By 2100, it could rise to 34 percent, says John May, a demographer at the World Bank.

The reason everyone should be concerned about population growth is the pressure it puts on natural resources. Any serious discussion about population growth must inevitability get around to sustainability. Growth will occur regardless, but the difference between sustainable and unsustainable growth hinges on whether humans are ready to take serious how we grow.

In 1999, when the six billion threshold was crossed, there was a good deal of fanfare at the UN. I learned this morning in a Financial Times article that this time the UN is deliberately avoiding that kind of publicity. Too bad. I wouldn’t suggest we track down number seven billion for baby pictures, but I almost wish the child had some magical powers to shut down computers for a brief window of time to get people’s attention.