Hunger and Outrage

UN: East Africa is an 'official famine zone'

Whatever the reasons; whether it comes down the ongoing drought, the apathy of the rich industrialised nations to act, or because the Horn of Africa appears to be locked in desperate state of social and political chaos, it remains an outrage that there are people, who in this day and age - 2011/1432 Hijri - still die of hunger.

Nature cannot be predicted, but food and clean drinking water are the basic minimums. When one hears about warlords and corrupt officials in the drought affected regions who intercept aid for their own extortionate purposes rather than allowing it to pass through to the starving, the shock is tinged with anger.

Food is not something to be trivialised. We are coming up to Ramadan shortly, so there will be opportunity to pause, reflect and consider those less fortunate. Meanwhile has anyone forgotten that we are supposed to be working towards the Millennium Goals to End World Poverty by 2015?

Every 3.6 seconds

More than 30 per cent of children in developing countries – about 600 million – live on less than US $1 a day and every 3.6 seconds one person dies of starvation. Usually it is a child under the age of 5.

Poverty hits children hardest. The first, 2015 Millennium Development Goal is to work towards the reduction by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and to reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

Some of these are very much connected. For example, there is a natural connection between the goal to improve maternal health care and child health care and movements towards the reduction of poverty focussing on children would be connected to access to universal primary education.

This still remains a Millennium Promise by the UN. Is it possible?

Five years will tell.

Millennium Development Goals

"We must not fail the billions who look to the international community to fulfil the promise of the Millennium Declaration for a better world." UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon

Without a major shift in how we run our economies and the politics of power and money, nothing much will change.

When I read that in today's Bangladesh 40 percent of population of 150 million lives on less that $1 a day, I'm reminded that the UN Millennium Goals may end up being empty rhetoric. 10 years from the Millennium Summit in 2000 when the goals were agreed and with 5 years left to achieve them, I wonder at the vastness of the task.

I completely agree with the principles. I'm consumed by a kind of pessimism that means I can't see the change, unless there is that massive shift in economic politics in order to achieve this. To remind us of the goals that were agreed in 2000 (be achieved world-wide by 2015):

• Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
• Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
• Goal 5: Improve maternal health
• Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
• Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
• Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

Whilst we are distracted by war, greed and power games, we need a reminder that we have five years left. This is an incredible task. Over the coming postings, I'd like to look at some of these.

The Colour of Blood

I have a friend* who has a done a most wonderful thing. A month ago he added to his family by travelling to Africa and adopting an orphaned child.

There will always be the argument about taking children out of their cultures - but there can never wholly be an absolute right or an absolute wrong when what stares you back in the face is a two month old child, severely undernourished, sick and weak. What choice do we make when faced with this dilemma?

Perhaps the 'ideal' solution is to move to the country so that a child can be raised amongst their own cultural kind, but it is never that easy - conflict zones have their own dangers and people often make the choice to move to places where opportunities and resources are more plentiful.

Anyway, here in the UAE, there are the usual immigration rules. The child was allowed in, but yesterday, the now three month old child had to leave the country to make a border crossing to revalidate his visa. Three months old. This would not be the case had the child been a British, US, Canadian, Australian or New Zealand national.

Intercontinental adoptions aside, one day, I hope, that extra privileges are not determined by things like colour of skin, passport or national identity. After all, African, Asian or white European cut the surface and then observe underneath - we all have the same colour of blood.

*he is a Pashtoon, point of fact

Hunger, Poverty, Conflict

Hunger, Poverty, Conflict. It's all a dreary mess, and Afghanistan is one of many places where it all comes together.

In a survey of over 700 people in Afghanistan (reported by the BBC), poverty was cited as the main reasons cited for the ongoing conflict.

The report, by Oxfam, coincides with the World Food Summit that ended on November 18th (and seen, rather pathetically now, as not entirely successful in addressing food 'shortages') and the recent Jeffery Sach's inpsired film, The End of Poverty?

The war on terror lost direction a long time ago. What about a war on poverty, which is seen as one of the root causes of misery and conflict?

In a World of Plenty ...

... why are so many of us hungry?

The child pictured, from Pakistan, is a window cleaner and the sole breadwinner in her family. "Whatever I earn I give to my mother, and when I am a hungry, I eat at the food distribution centre." BBC News

Yesterday's media commentary on the UNICEF report, TRACKING PROGRESS ON CHILD AND MATERNAL NUTRITION raises some alarming statistics - over 90% of the worlds most undernourished children are in Asia and Africa with an estimated 195 million children in developing countries suffering from stunting and poor physical development as a result of undernourishment.

Undernutrition caused by poor feeding and care, aggravated by illness leads to a cycle of recurring illness and faltering growth – irreversibly damaging their development and their cognitive abilities, and impairing their capacities as adults. If a child suffers from diarrhoea – due to a lack of clean water or adequate sanitation, or because of poor hygiene practices – it will drain nutrients from his or her body.

And so it goes, from bad to worse: 1 billion people world-wide are undernourished. and hungry. Children who are weakened by nutritional deficiencies cannot stave off illness for long, and the frequent and more severe bouts of illness they experience make them even weaker. A third of all deaths of under 5s is related to undernutrition.

Fifty-nine percent of under-5s in Afghanistan show signs of moderate to severe stunting and comes out as the country where percentage wise, its the highest. India, Nigeria and Pakistan also have percentages in their 40s.

In a world where there are people over-eating, and too much of our food is wasted, it is outrageous that globally, as we approach 2010, we still have instances when our children go to sleep hungry at night.