World Hunger Could Be Easily Cut In Half

by Stephen Leahy

(IPS) -- World hunger can be cut in half in a single decade for a mere 60 cents per month for every person living in a developed country, say two renowned scientists heading the United Nations task force on hunger.

"It's peanuts compared to other big expenditures such as the war in Iraq," said Pedro Sanchez of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City, in an interview from Kisumu, Kenya.

More than 850 million people go to bed hungry every night, 300 million of them children. Worse still, more than 5.5 million children die of malnutrition-related causes each year.

But these horrifying statistics can eventually be eliminated, Sanchez and M.S. Swaminathan, leader of India's Green Revolution movement, explained in the journal Science last week.

The first step is to meet the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger by 2015, they say. The financial costs are modest: $8 billion for 2005, rising to $11 billion a year by 2015.

To put this in perspective, U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year are expected to cost $105 billion.

Sanchez hopes that the world's compassion for the victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean will expand to those suffering what he calls an extended silent tsunami that is sweeping through Africa.

"Each month, 200,000 people die from malnutrition, HIV/AIDS and other causes here in Africa," he said.

Sanchez and Swaminathan headed the UN's Hunger Task Force, which just issued its how-to blueprint titled "Halving Hunger: It Can Be Done" last week.

The report involved experts from governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and academia, who spent two years traveling the world to observe and discuss precisely what is being done to fight hunger and how solutions that are succeeding can be used in regions that are still struggling.

It describes 40 specific, proven solutions for fighting hunger and a plan for implementing them at international, national and community levels. Africa was given specific emphasis, as it is the only region in the world where malnutrition is rising.

Among the report's recommendations is the need for nations to take a multi-sectoral approach to hunger involving agriculture, nutrition and rural development, as well as increasing their budgetary support.

In particular, African governments should invest at least 10 percent of their national budgets in agriculture and nutrition, with special attention to research, the report noted. Kenya currently invests 4 percent and Uganda just 2 percent.

The same is true for donor nations, where contributions to agriculture research and infrastructure are minuscule.

"Crops fail because investment in agriculture is basically nonexistent," Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, told the Washington Post on Jan 15.

"We could make a modest investment and prevent that kind of disaster long term. We provide less than 10 cents per farmer and then we're surprized that famines keep coming. This is really penny wise but pound foolish," he said.

In 2003, the United States gave $550 million in emergency relief to ease one of Ethiopia's recurrent famines -- but only $4 million in aid to help Ethiopia develop agriculture.

"Development has focused on industrialization in recent years," said Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington-based NGO.

There are no big returns on investments in agriculture, so donor countries stopped spending money on it, said Brown, whose book on global food security will be published in early February.

"Food security has also become more complex and involves water resources, the environment, human health and land use," he told IPS.

Concerns about corruption are another reason for the lack of investment in long-term solutions and building local capacity, suggests Sanchez.

Development aid in Africa has a somewhat tainted reputation, leading many to believe that foreign aid just doesn't make much of a difference, he said. But the fact is when it comes to Africa, the developed world "has never invested enough money, long enough or smart enough."

"We also need to make on-the-ground assistance programs as corruption-proof as possible," Sanchez says.

Reducing hunger in Africa requires improving the soil, irrigation and crop varieties. The Task Force proposes that in the short term, mineral and organic fertilizers be supplied for free to farmers. To prevent misuse or corruption, tamper-proof smart cards could be issued that are redeemable at private fertilizer dealers.

Voucher systems could also be used for farmers to sell their products to school and community feeding programs.

Another key strategy is to train local villagers in agriculture and nutrition. In the Kenyan village of Sauri near Lake Victoria, Sanchez is helping train villagers in a bottom-up effort to reverse hunger and poverty.

"We want to quick-start an African Green Revolution which will be very different than Asia's Green Revolution," he says.

Lack of water and poor-quality soil makes Africa much more challenging. And there is little potential for mega-solutions like giant dams to bring water to drought-prone areas, he says. Africa's green revolution will take many different forms, blending traditional knowledge, academic research and at times high technology.

Investments in biotechnology to develop crops more tolerant to drought or salinity and improved nutritional value will be needed, he says.

However, one of the biggest obstacles to reducing hunger in much of Africa is the AIDS epidemic. In Sauri, more than 30 percent of adults are infected with the virus -- "people in the prime of their life who would normally be farming," Sanchez explains.

The disease has also depleted Africa's ranks of scientists and agricultural experts. But better nutrition could greatly prolong the life of those infected with HIV. Special feeding programs for AIDS sufferers and their families are among the report's many recommendations.

However, little of this is possible without increased support from the developed world.

"The Indian Ocean tsunami opened the world's hearts and pocketbooks," said Sanchez. "I hope, and I think the world will now take the next step."