Jonathan Tremblay: 2009: World Hunger Relief Has Officially Failed
[Jonathan Tremblay is a historian and is currently an intern for History News Network.
The United Nations has released its most recent statistics concerning world hunger and the prognosis is dire. Despite decades of governmental programs, celebrity-incited events, charity-organized fundraisers and all the good-will in the world, the number of hungry and malnourished people on the planet has grown to over 1 billion. Not only has the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) indicated that hunger isn’t disappearing, the “global food security” indicators actually demonstrate that hunger’s grasp on humanity is accelerating.
Cancer is a nuisance, AIDS is a pestilence and war is an epidemic but it is hunger that is responsible for 58% of all adult and 60% of all children’s deaths worldwide every year (2004-2008 figures). Recently, the problem has been compounded by a global recession and the subsequent increase in basic food prices. Indeed, there have been over 115 million new arrivals in the “hungry” or “malnourished” categories in the last year and a half alone. We now have to take a step back and analyze the way we’ve been dealing with the problem. We’ve thrown handfuls of money at it but we haven’t even dented the issue. Our Governments have failed, celebrities have failed, we have failed and the world is dying of hunger despite the fact that we already produce enough food to adequately feed 6 billion people and could potentially produce enough for 12 billion (FAO estimates). Where have we gone wrong?
Decades of Trying
Since the 1970s, there have been several attempts to nip hunger in the bud so to speak. First in 1970, a United Nations resolution committed most of the industrialized world into investing at least 0.7% of their Gross National Product every year towards the fight against global poverty. Within five years and to this day, only Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have maintained this promise. Good intentions had seemingly already failed almost 40 years ago. Despite this grim reality, many countries such as the United-States still use the 1970 resolution to show they are committed to the problem, without actually adhering to the obligations of the resolution.
One year later in August 1971, “The Concert for Bangladesh” welcomed George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Ravi Shankar among others, raising funds to help famine relief in Bangladesh. Attended by over 40,000 spectators in Madison Square Garden, this was a first in a long line of concerts that raised a decent sum of money for hunger relief. It was also a pioneer as a concert that ate up all mediatization and left nothing for the issue at hand. Famine continued unimpeded on the Indian subcontinent, the ex-Beatle experienced continued success and the world forgot about Bangladesh.
The next philanthropic experiment was conducted in 1984-85 by the Irish artist Bob Geldof. Band Aid and USA for Africa were amongst the projects he encouraged; the world’s most famous artists joined hands to sing for hunger relief. “We are the world” and “Do they know it’s Christmas” became instant chart toppers but once again, the artists and their song received a lot more coverage than the famine itself. To solve this dilemma, Geldof organised a two-day mega concert to raise funds and end hunger in Africa (ignoring Asia and the Pacific which had and continue to shelter two thirds of the world’s hungry and malnourished). 1985’s “Live Aid” raised an impressive 100 million$ and significantly assisted aid and food relief programs in Africa, at least for a while. Hunger rates then began to plummet in the late 80s and continued in the early 90s as the world finally acknowledged the problem..
As an epilogue, global prices began rising in the late 90s along with inflation. With our renewed recession, not even Geldof’s 2005 “Live 8” concert that made a heart-felt appeal to the industrialized countries of the world was able to curb the accelerating hunger and hunger-related deaths in the world. Furthermore, famine in Asia and the Pacific continue to increase exponentially as the world continues to focus exclusively “African” facet of the crisis.
Recession and no-good money
The past few years of economic turmoil have seen the progressive reduction of aid coming from individual countries and thus an already dire situation is getting much worse.
Hundreds of Billions of dollars have not necessarily solved anything but there once was a visionary that single-handedly eliminated hunger, if only for a time. Recently deceased scientists Norman Borlaug was a pioneer of the “Green Revolution” in the mid XXth century. By producing new strains of flood and disease resistant crops, food production in the Third World began to increase exponentially. Mr. Borlaug thus potentially saved over 1 billion hunger-related deaths. Unfortunately, his work and his life have greatly been overshadowed in the past decades by a return to “organic” and “natural” foods against the harms of GMO-containing alternatives. Indeed, Borlaug was the very inventor of Genetically Modified Organisms or man-made crops but without these today, we simply wouldn’t be able to feed even half the world. Organic food is good but exclusively organic food would mean the genocide of over 3 billion people.
Finally, in 2009, hunger and malnutrition are much more than a problem of the Third World, a faraway ill of foreign peoples simply less fortunate than those in the “developed” countries. On the contrary, the new UN statistics have confirmed a growingly alarming and surprising trend: the hungry are all around us. As of today, only 17% of the world’s hungry live in the Third World as opposed to 40% in the late 1960s. The rest surround us and are victims of poorly organised responses to a truly imminent crisis. Money has been and will continue to be but a stop-gap measure. It is through research, science and innovation that, as Norman Borlaug already knew, we will eventually find the keys to a nourished and more productive future.
Read entire article at The End is Coming (History Blog)
The United Nations has released its most recent statistics concerning world hunger and the prognosis is dire. Despite decades of governmental programs, celebrity-incited events, charity-organized fundraisers and all the good-will in the world, the number of hungry and malnourished people on the planet has grown to over 1 billion. Not only has the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) indicated that hunger isn’t disappearing, the “global food security” indicators actually demonstrate that hunger’s grasp on humanity is accelerating.
Cancer is a nuisance, AIDS is a pestilence and war is an epidemic but it is hunger that is responsible for 58% of all adult and 60% of all children’s deaths worldwide every year (2004-2008 figures). Recently, the problem has been compounded by a global recession and the subsequent increase in basic food prices. Indeed, there have been over 115 million new arrivals in the “hungry” or “malnourished” categories in the last year and a half alone. We now have to take a step back and analyze the way we’ve been dealing with the problem. We’ve thrown handfuls of money at it but we haven’t even dented the issue. Our Governments have failed, celebrities have failed, we have failed and the world is dying of hunger despite the fact that we already produce enough food to adequately feed 6 billion people and could potentially produce enough for 12 billion (FAO estimates). Where have we gone wrong?
Decades of Trying
Since the 1970s, there have been several attempts to nip hunger in the bud so to speak. First in 1970, a United Nations resolution committed most of the industrialized world into investing at least 0.7% of their Gross National Product every year towards the fight against global poverty. Within five years and to this day, only Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have maintained this promise. Good intentions had seemingly already failed almost 40 years ago. Despite this grim reality, many countries such as the United-States still use the 1970 resolution to show they are committed to the problem, without actually adhering to the obligations of the resolution.
One year later in August 1971, “The Concert for Bangladesh” welcomed George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Ravi Shankar among others, raising funds to help famine relief in Bangladesh. Attended by over 40,000 spectators in Madison Square Garden, this was a first in a long line of concerts that raised a decent sum of money for hunger relief. It was also a pioneer as a concert that ate up all mediatization and left nothing for the issue at hand. Famine continued unimpeded on the Indian subcontinent, the ex-Beatle experienced continued success and the world forgot about Bangladesh.
The next philanthropic experiment was conducted in 1984-85 by the Irish artist Bob Geldof. Band Aid and USA for Africa were amongst the projects he encouraged; the world’s most famous artists joined hands to sing for hunger relief. “We are the world” and “Do they know it’s Christmas” became instant chart toppers but once again, the artists and their song received a lot more coverage than the famine itself. To solve this dilemma, Geldof organised a two-day mega concert to raise funds and end hunger in Africa (ignoring Asia and the Pacific which had and continue to shelter two thirds of the world’s hungry and malnourished). 1985’s “Live Aid” raised an impressive 100 million$ and significantly assisted aid and food relief programs in Africa, at least for a while. Hunger rates then began to plummet in the late 80s and continued in the early 90s as the world finally acknowledged the problem..
As an epilogue, global prices began rising in the late 90s along with inflation. With our renewed recession, not even Geldof’s 2005 “Live 8” concert that made a heart-felt appeal to the industrialized countries of the world was able to curb the accelerating hunger and hunger-related deaths in the world. Furthermore, famine in Asia and the Pacific continue to increase exponentially as the world continues to focus exclusively “African” facet of the crisis.
Recession and no-good money
The past few years of economic turmoil have seen the progressive reduction of aid coming from individual countries and thus an already dire situation is getting much worse.
Hundreds of Billions of dollars have not necessarily solved anything but there once was a visionary that single-handedly eliminated hunger, if only for a time. Recently deceased scientists Norman Borlaug was a pioneer of the “Green Revolution” in the mid XXth century. By producing new strains of flood and disease resistant crops, food production in the Third World began to increase exponentially. Mr. Borlaug thus potentially saved over 1 billion hunger-related deaths. Unfortunately, his work and his life have greatly been overshadowed in the past decades by a return to “organic” and “natural” foods against the harms of GMO-containing alternatives. Indeed, Borlaug was the very inventor of Genetically Modified Organisms or man-made crops but without these today, we simply wouldn’t be able to feed even half the world. Organic food is good but exclusively organic food would mean the genocide of over 3 billion people.
Finally, in 2009, hunger and malnutrition are much more than a problem of the Third World, a faraway ill of foreign peoples simply less fortunate than those in the “developed” countries. On the contrary, the new UN statistics have confirmed a growingly alarming and surprising trend: the hungry are all around us. As of today, only 17% of the world’s hungry live in the Third World as opposed to 40% in the late 1960s. The rest surround us and are victims of poorly organised responses to a truly imminent crisis. Money has been and will continue to be but a stop-gap measure. It is through research, science and innovation that, as Norman Borlaug already knew, we will eventually find the keys to a nourished and more productive future.