Hunger

My column in BusinessWeek Mindanao

Global hunger relief back-tracking, especially in war zones.

World efforts to lower hunger to zero by 2030 are being negated by warfare and climate change, warn nutritionists. Their latest global index categorizes 51 nations, mainly in Asia and Africa, where hunger is alarming.

It's hard for me and my family to believe and understand  that millions of people worldwide are dying because of hunger. What a crazy world.

    

Germany's Welthungerhilfe (World Hunger Relief) aid organization published the Global Hunger Index (GHI) in Berlin Thursday, warning that gains made since 2000 have gone into reverse, with 821 million people, many of them children, undernourished.

Zero hunger by 2030 is one of 17 UN-agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Data from 119 countries, including child stunting, was used to calculate the placing of each nation on the GHI scale.

"Without political solutions the battle [against hunger] will not be won," Welthungerhilfe President Bärbel Dieckmann said, adding that the African Union, the UN and the EU were primarily responsible, not non-governmental organizations.

One of the most known reasons of hunger: land losses threaten indigenous communities. Data on undernourishment, child wasting, stunting and mortality, which last decade showed average improvements, began receding early last year.

Warfare as well climate change are the key factors.

"And this is mainly due to war zones: where there are armed conflicts and some areas that are suffering massively from the consequences of climate change.

Yes, it's painful to accept reality, but hunger double in war zones.

Hunger was twice as prevalent in war-torn countries. Drought in eastern Africa, once at 10-yearly intervals, now struck every two years. Corruption and poor governance were also factors.

Worst-placed on the GHI hunger severity index was as we could learn in today's news (October 12, 2018) the Central African Republic - where inter-militia conflict lingers despite a French-led UN intervention - followed by Madagascar, Chad, Zambia and war-torn Yemen.

Sixteen nations exhibiting no improvements and even regressive trends were identified in the data sets from 2016 and 2017 analyzed by the International Food Policy Research Institute, the Irish entity Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, which is based in Bonn alongside numerous UN agencies including its climate secretariat.

Strong improvements in tackling hunger were, however, recorded in Angola, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Myanmar, said the authors of the GHI report.

Child mortality and undernourishment due to insufficient calorific intake prevailed in Africa south of the Sahara. South Asia exhibited stunting and wasting among children under five, in part due to  lack of essential vitamins and minerals, the report concluded. 

Gerd Müller, federal development aid minister and Bavarian conservative in Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet, the resurgence in world hunger was a "scandal because our planet has the potential to feed all people." Yes, the German minister is very much right. I strongly agree. It's indeed a scandal.