Halving the number of hungry people is the number-one Millennium Development Goal. Some progress has been made, but the key causes of hunger remain.

September 2009

By Amanda Jepchirchir Koech, World Vision Zimbabwe, and Shawna Templeton, World Vision U.S.

“I think the happiest children in the world are those who know no hunger,” says Laura Ndlovu, 10. She can still feel the lingering hunger pangs that would wrench her belly on the nights when she and her siblings went to sleep with empty stomachs. Grandmother Regina — who cares for Laura and 12 other children — had nothing to give them.

Another day of hunger

Drought has affected Zimbabwe and Southern Africa for more than five years. Until last year, doting grandmother Regina had been fighting a losing battle. Poverty and hyperinflation left her and the children extremely malnourished.

“We didn’t have enough to eat,” says Laura. “I went to sleep so hungry that I wished I wouldn’t wake up in the morning to face another day of feeling hunger.”

Laura would wake up hungry and go to school, only to be sent home for unpaid school fees and having no books. “The only thing that made me feel like a person was that my grandmother would tell us she loves us every day,” she says.

Hunger around the world

Just like in the home of Laura and Regina, the food crisis is having a devastating effect around the world. There are more than 1 billion undernourished people in the world today. The majority of these are women and children. Among the key causes of hunger are natural disasters, conflict, poverty, poor agriculture production, and environmental degradation.

In July, at the G8 Summit in Italy, the G8 food security initiative committed $20 billion over three years to tackle global hunger. The Obama administration pledged $3.5 billion in U.S. aid for food security toward this effort — a bold step toward a more holistic approach to ending global hunger. The G8 initiative will seek to address the short, medium, and long-term global hunger issues. Many other countries, including most G20 countries, and organizations like the World Food Program, endorsed the food security initiative.

What is needed?

However, this food security plan doesn’t address the failure of G8 leaders to keep promises made in 2005 to increase aid to Africa by $25 billion by 2010 and achieve marked progress on global child and maternal health. With that deadline just one year away, those goals are not being met.

Halving the number of hungry people in the world is the first Millennium Development Goal — a set of eight development goals that United Nations member states and many international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015. They include reducing extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics such as AIDS and malaria, and developing a global partnership for development. Some progress has been made, but the key causes of hunger, poverty, and disease remain.

“What is needed now is a firm commitment by world leaders to get back on track toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015,” says Robert Zachritz, World Vision’s director for advocacy and government relations. “This includes the G8 leaders meeting the foreign-assistance promises made in 2005.”

Zachritz explains that, in conjunction with other food, agriculture, and nutrition programs, food assistance lessens the impact of world hunger and helps break the cycle of extreme poverty. However, a detailed strategy must be executed with care to ensure consideration for emergency needs, nutritional deficiencies, and sustainable agriculture development.

The G20 summit, a meeting of the countries with the largest economies and the European Union, is taking place in Pittsburgh, Pa., this month. At this historic meeting, World Vision is urging country leaders to:

• Ensure that improvements made to food assistance include enhancing its nutritional quality to meet the needs of children under 5.
• Support long-term food and nutrition security strategies that allow small farmers to provide nutritious, sustainable, culturally appropriate food for their children, families, and communities.

“World Vision commends the efforts by the G20 leaders in pushing for momentum to end global hunger. However, summits alone won’t make it happen if they neglect their work at home to put promises into action with policies and funding,” Zachritz says. “The U.S. contribution to this hunger initiative will fall flat unless Congress takes up the charge and passes the bills that make it happen.”

Transforming communities

In World Vision’s food security programming, emphasis is placed on community-led processes that allow people to attain a positive and sustainable change in their lives. We help communities work to change the systems and structures that impede the poor from achieving food security.

Regina was one of the many in her village who benefited from a World Vision conservation-farming project. She was trained to understand moisture and soil fertility conservation and was given maize and sorghum seed.

“I have actually harvested grain that will last my 15-member household for three months,” explains Regina. “It gives me hope that I can produce much more in the next farming season using my recently acquired conservation farming knowledge...”

“This garden produces money for us,” says Laura, “and money is the key for us to get the food we need as well as school fees for us to learn and get jobs when we grow up.”

Regina is passing her newfound skills on to her grandchildren. “This is the only legacy I can leave for them so that they can earn a decent living in [the] future.”