Every Six Seconds A Child Dies Of Hunger

Hunger Is Still The Number One Risk To Health Worldwide

Feb 7, 2009

963 million undernourished people live in the world. One in seven people do not get enough food, that is more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union.

The facts about hunger are shocking when we pay attention: One in seven people in this world do not get enough food to stay healthy every day. An estimated 923 million people in the world go hungry every day. In the United States, 11.7 million children live in households where people have to skip meals or eat less to make ends meet. That means one in ten households in the U.S. are living with hunger or are at risk of hunger (Bread for The World).

Millennium Development Goals

In September 2000 world leaders came together at United Nations Headquarters in New York to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration, committing nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of targets - with a deadline of 2015 - that have become known as the eight Millennium Development Goals. The first one of the Millennium Development Goals aims to cut hunger in half by the year 2015. The goals set time-bound targets so that progress can be measured and provide a framework for coordinating global development.

Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger

In accepting the Millennium Development Goals the international community pledged to "spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty." The first goal on the list has two targets.

While progress has been made in the 1990s, a recent spike in global food prices has increased hunger and poverty. Prices of agricultural commodities such as wheat, corn and rice jumped to record levels last year, triggering food riots in countries ranging from Haiti to Egypt to Bangladesh and prompting appeals for food aid for more than 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It has been more than a decade since prices were increasing as quickly as they are now. Scientists argue that climate change also will increase hunger and poverty rates around the world.

How to Help?

Long-term food security depends on increasing the supply of food and raising the earning potential of poor people. Four basic types of investment are required to escape extreme poverty. The first is a boost to productivity of the core livelihood, agriculture. The second is an investment in preventative health services and control of the main killers: infection, nutritional deficiencies and unsafe childbirth. The third is education, and the fourth one is infrastructure, essential for productivity in every sphere, including power, roads, safe water, phone and Internet connectivity, and port services. (Jeffrey D. Sachs, Common Wealth, 2008, p.223f).

Urging The Nation's Decision Makers to End Hunger

To further the Millennium Development Goals the United States needs to have a consistent set of policies across government departments. An effective streamlined agency could consolidate the plethora of development assistance programs scattered throughout the government bureaucracy. We can urge Congress and the Obama administration to develop a national strategy for global development.

Development assistance should also be closely coordinated with other international donors to reduce the burdens on recipient governments as well as costly duplication of programs

(see Recommendations for reforming U.S. foreign assistance, Bread for The World Institute).

In January (1/26/09) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed a United Nations conference, the High Level Meeting on Food Security for All, in Madrid and pledged that the administration of President Barack Obama would seek a new engagement between donors, states, NGOs and the private sector to fight hunger. Now is the time to change the way we live together with other peoples on this planet. Cooperation and diplomacy are more crucial than at any other time in many generations.

A billion people go hungry each day. We need a breakthrough that is demonstrable, public, clear, and convincing, that can mobilize the public’s hearts and minds, and that can demonstrate success.

The copyright of the article Every Six Seconds A Child Dies Of Hunger in World Hunger is owned by Christine Welter. Permission to republish Every Six Seconds A Child Dies Of Hunger in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

May 22, 2009 6:07 AM

Guest :

i hope Mr. Obama helps you in your needs and your doing a great job persuading the people to help you. I hope you guys reach your goals and i hope you guys decress another half if u can. If people die there wont be much reincartion anymore and the human race would be in risk. Please Mr. Obama if you can help these people in the need for food. People should not die, just because they are poor. It is your job to help every citizen in the US and i hope you do it.