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Increased funding needed to fight hunger and poverty

by Kanaga Raja

GENEVA: The International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) will not be able to  spur broad-based economic development unless it leads to increased funding to fight world hunger and rural poverty, charged three UN food and agricultural agencies in Monterrey, Mexico.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warn: “Without increased, targeted funding to fight world poverty and hunger, the most basic of obstacles to human and economic potential will remain. Moreover, hunger and poverty will not be halved by 2015, as agreed by world leaders at the Millennium Summit in 2000.  Progress towards these goals has been proceeding well below the rates needed for success.”

The three UN agencies prepared a joint report for the FfD Conference, in which they outline a twin-track strategy for achieving substantial reductions in hunger and poverty. The strategy involves:

*        promoting agricultural and rural development mainly through productivity increases, especially among smallholder farmers, to achieve broad-based economic growth, increased food availability and sustained poverty reduction, and

*        improving food consumption to raise the productivity and productive potential of those who are weakened by hunger, and allow them to take advantage of the opportunities offered by development.

The three agencies said widespread hunger and malnutrition in a world of plentiful food implied that extreme poverty is the root cause of undernourishment. At the same time, hunger and malnutrition are major causes of poverty.  The agencies point out that of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty on less than $1 a day, 75% live in rural areas and make their living primarily through agriculture. 780 million people in the South still live in hunger. Yet, over the last 15 years, aid to agriculture and rural development has declined by nearly half.

The FfD meet was urged by the agencies to reverse this downward trend in development finance. This will enable limited aid resources to more effectively foster an inclusive and equitable global economy, which was the overall aim of FfD, the agencies add.

The agencies point to the link between hunger and growth, warning that: “Those suffering from hunger and malnutrition are caught in a vicious circle: inadequate food intake and poor nutritional status cause susceptibility to illness, low productivity and continuing poverty.  Evidence shows clearly that in societies where hunger is widespread, overall growth, an essential element in sustainable poverty reduction, is severely compromised.”

This relationship was reiterated by FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, who said: “A hungry person is not able to work at his or her full potential. If some 40% of a country’s population is underfed, the economy as a whole lacks the energy needed for growth.”

“Even more alarming,” warned Dr. Diouf, “a hungry person is an angry person easily swayed by charges that the global economic system is not working and should be trashed in favour of something radically different.”

According to the agencies, between 1975 and 1999, countries that managed to reduce the prevalence of hunger invested substantially more in agriculture than those where undernourishment remains widespread.

“It is worrying that capital formation per agricultural worker has remained stagnant or declined in countries where more than 20% of the population is undernourished and where agriculture is essential for poverty reduction and food security,” the agencies emphasize.

“There is a disconnect - in fact, a fundamental inconsistency - in where aid goes and the fact that poverty is found overwhelmingly in rural areas,” said Lennart Bage, President of IFAD.

“Aid must be targeted to enable the rural poor to build better lives for themselves and their families through linking them with productive assets, markets, and institutions. Access to technology is also important to increase their productivity,” he added.

The agencies argue that while development opportunities may exist, poor families however often cannot take advantage of them, and in this respect, the UN agencies are calling for the establishment of food assistance programmes and food-based safety nets that are directly targeted to poor households to improve their nutritional status and assist them in their longer-term food security.

The Executive Director of the World Food Programme, Catherine Bertini, stressed the importance of food aid, saying, “We have to remember that the hungry poor need our help today.  Ideally, long-term economic development will help them move out of poverty in the future, but there are tens of millions of parents who wake up to the same question every morning: How will I feed my children today?  We need to help them.  If these families are malnourished, they will only fall further behind.  Food aid can simultaneously meet their nutritional needs today and give them new opportunities for tomorrow.”

The agencies caution that the proportion of public expenditure that developing countries devote to agriculture and rural development is far from adequate, “especially in countries where food deprivation is highest.”

   “We firmly believe that it is fundamentally wrong to consider development assistance as an act of charity.  Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger is more than just a moral imperative - it is in the self-interest of the international community, with a high pay-off in peace, political stability, overall development, and prosperity,” the agencies conclude. (SUNS5083)                                            

From TWE No 277 (16-31 March 2002)

 

 

 


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