Reducing poverty and hunger

Oct 03, 2012 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
A recent study conducted by the United Nations found that there are some 870 million people who could be considered chronically undernourished in the world today, the vast majority of whom live in the developing world. Actually, the term developing world is itself a misnomer, as an increasing number of countries classified as ‘developing’ are slipping further into the abyss of poverty and underdevelopment. A few are labeled as “failed states” due to civil wars and an absence of constitutional government.
One consequence of political instability and undemocratic rule is the inability to provide for a growing population, a significant number of whom are dying, for want of food, water and medicine and other preventable illnesses. Millions of children could have been alive today had they been provided with adequate pre-and post-natal care.
According to the World Health Organization, on average 29,000 children die of preventable causes each day, that is, about 20 deaths per minute.
Most of the deaths are taking place in Sub-Saharan Africa due to malnutrition and diseases.
Overall, there had been some improvements over the past decade or so. According to the Report, the number of hungry people declined somewhat between 1990 and 2007, but there has been some slowing down of the process due to the economic and financial crisis which has gripped a number of countries, both in the developed and the developing world. This was further exacerbated by extreme weather conditions resulting in food shortages due to droughts and floods.
“ In today’s world of unprecedented technical and economic opportunities we find it entirely unacceptable that more than one million children under five are underweight and therefore unable to realize their full human and socio-economic potential and that childhood malnutrition is a cause of death for more than 2.5 million children every year,” according to joint statement issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development ( IFAD) and World Food Programme (WFP).
“We note with particular concern that the recovery of the world economy from the recent global financial crisis remains fragile. We nonetheless appeal to the international community to make extra efforts to assist the poorest in realizing their basic human right to adequate food. The world has the knowledge and the means to eliminate all forms of food insecurity and malnutrition,” the statement added.
Unlike some other parts of the world, Latin America and the Caribbean has made over the years significant progress, with the number of hungry falling from 65 million in the early 1990s to 49 million in 2010-2012, while the prevalence of undernourishment declined from 14.6 per cent to 8.3 percent.
Africa, by comparison, remained the only region where the number of hungry grew over the period, increasing from 175 million to 239 million over the past four years, with nearly 20 million added within the past four years alone.
The key to reversing poverty and hunger is to increase growth rates but as the Report underlined, growth though necessary, is not a sufficient condition for poverty reduction.
Growth must not only benefit the poor, but must also be nutrition-sensitive in order to reduce various forms of malnutrition.
Reducing hunger is about more than just increasing the quantity of food, but also about increasing the quality of food in terms of diversity, nutrient content and safety.
Guyana has made significant advances over the past two decades in terms of agricultural diversification, with an expansion of traditional crops and aquaculture both for the local and overseas markets. The contribution of other crops to the country’s GDP has been quite significant thanks to an aggressive agriculture diversification programme launched by the Agriculture Ministry.
Guyana has moved away from a mono-cultural economy to one that is more broad-based even though sugar and rice continue to be the two largest contributors to the economy in terms of foreign exchange earnings and employment creation.
Unlike so many other countries in the Caribbean and elsewhere, Guyana is relatively self-sufficient in terms of food production, even though a significant amount of foreign exchange is spent on food imports for which there are local substitutes.
But, as the saying goes, we are all creatures of habit and the food culture handed down to us during the colonial period still remains dominant.
As Guyanese, we have to make a conscious effort to consume more of what we produce and in so doing lessen our dependence on imported foods.
This will give a give a boost to our local food production and at the same time save valuable foreign exchange.
Hydar Ally

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