It takes a lot more to end hunger
G8 feasting while 1 out of 6 people are hungry
For weeks the rumors have floated that President Obama wanted to make a major announcement at the G8 on the issue of hunger. His staff said that he wanted to focus on aid to small farmers to help them grow their way out of poverty and feed themselves. It's exciting and very welcome in the light of the news that world faces a sad milestone in 2009: This year more than 1 billion people will face hunger. That's more hungry people than ever in human history. Horrible and tragic and, worst: solvable. Last year, the UN convened a high level task force that looked at the issue.
The task force said that $25-40b additional would be needed to respond to the food and hunger crisis. It's a lot of money, and yet it's not so much. As a price tag to end the scourge of hunger, it's really pretty cheap. So the question is: how much can the G8 come up with to end hunger? Various press reports have said that an announcement is coming for $15 billion on Friday. That would be a tremendous down payment on the total needed. Maybe a celebration is in order?
But, of course, the devil is in details. On closer inspection, perhaps the $15 billion is less than it appears. First, it's meant to be spent over 3 years, not one. So, it's more like $5 billion a year.
But then, is that $5 billion in additional money, or $5 billion total? Turns out, it's total spending, including existing spending…
Well, $5 billion is approximately what donors are already spending on development aid or agriculture. So, what started as an exciting hope, is ending as a bit of a deflation. We shall see tomorrow (Friday the 10th) what happens.
In the mean time, we choreographed a stunt on food today, in Rome (see photo). The G8 leaders fill their plates, while 1 in 6 people in the world are left hungry.
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Comments
Poverty = Hunger
It is great that the G8 are doing something about world hunger, however it sucks that they have made it sound like they are doing so much when really they aren't. $15 billion is great, still in my opinion not enough to give everyone in the world enough money to eat, but hey, it's a start. The fact that after is all said and done that 15 drops down to 5, is ridiculous. Not to get too off topic here, but just here in the US, it is estimated that over $3 billion dollars was spent on the election campaigns alone. Now if the US people can support candidates and the candidates can put together that much money, then why in the world can the G8 not scrounge up more than $5 billion? With 1 in 6 people going hungry, more people should be aware of what an individual can do to help. If more people could donate to organizations trying to help poverty strickin companies, then that would at least be a start to ending poverty which in turn would be ending world hunger. People need to stop spending money on things that could be given up easily, such as paying $2 for a bottle of water that was filled up God knows where or buying a candy bar at a gas station that they really don't need and using that money to help people survive. Everyone should work together to end this and the G8 needs to be doing more to help our world.
The rising cost of poverty
While the G8 conference sets aside only $5 billion per year, the number of individuals below the $1.25 per day absolute poverty rate increases at an astounding rate. I believe that instead of wasting money of fancy coffees and over priced waters, we should use the money to help individuals who live in conditions that we could not even imagine. In an Oxfam article on September 4th, Jon Slater stated that "developing countries will need up to $635 bn in 2009 just to stand". Why is it that the US can spend trillions of dollars bailing out its banks and cannot even stand to put forth a little more to help those who are in true need and will not just spend the money to use as bonuses or in other leisurely ways? We are very fortunate compared to other countries and if all of the developed countries learned to be a little more generous, then these underprivileged countries would not have to be in this horrible situation. While the number of individuals under the absolute poverty rate is the highest today as it has ever been, it will only increase. The impoverished in most developed areas is only relative to those who have no real shelter, live not knowing when they will receive their next amount of food, and living in disease infested areas, where even if there is a medical care available they would not be able to afford it anyways. We need to get our acts together and help as much as possible and as soon as possible, because the longer we wait to act, the more individuals will die of starvation and other poverty related deaths.
While it is very important
While it is very important that the G8 is recognizing poverty and hunger as an issue it is clear they need to do more. 5 million a year is really just drops in the ocean. Americans are able to donate more. However just donating money is not going to fix the situation. People need to be educated and they need to begin pressuring their governemnts for real change, not just insignifigant gestures.
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