DEVELOPMENT: World Losing Fight Against Hunger

Abra Pollock

WASHINGTON, Oct 12 2007 (IPS) – At the midpoint between the Millennium Development Declaration in 2000 and the deadline of 2015, the majority of developing countries are failing to meet two key Millennium Development Goals, according to a report released here Friday by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
The 60-page report, titled The Challenge of Hunger 2007 , uses a measurement tool known as the Global Hunger Index to rank 118 countries on their progress towards meeting the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) reducing extreme poverty and hunger by 50 percent and the fourth reducing child mortality by two-thirds.

The index measures countries progress toward the MDGs with three indicators: child mortality, child malnutrition, and the percentage of people within a country who are calorie deficient .

Based on index indicators, only two regions of the world Latin America and the Caribbean and East Asia and the Pacific are on track. Other regions rankings ranged from progress but not on track to stagnation and worse fast regress .

If current rates of progress are not accelerated, certain countries will fail to meet their development goals, said Doris Wiesmann, the IFPRI researcher who developed the index.

Within Latin America, Cuba ranks number one in terms of progress. But Venezuela ranks within the bottom 10, indicative of slow regress.
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Most of those countries that are falling behind are in Sub-Saharan Africa. Thirty-eight of the 42 countries in this region are off-track on child mortality, 35 are off-track on reducing child malnutrition, and 27 are off-track on reducing the percentage of their population that is calorie-deficient. Nine of the 10 countries with the highest levels of hunger are Sub-Saharan African countries, said the study, coauthored by German Agro-Action and Concern Worldwide.

Yet within this region, two countries in particular Ghana and Mozambique have made considerable progress toward reducing hunger. Experts attributed this progress to Ghana s political stability, and to the fact that Mozambique is now recovering from its decades-long civil war.

Indeed, political violence and corruption often play a role not only in determining the overall wellbeing of a nation, but also in contributing to the prevalence of hunger and nutritional deficiency, according to the report. Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), two countries ranked last on the Index, have both suffered from decades of ethnic violence. North Korea s isolationism, economic mismanagement, and militarised society have contributed to its ranking, at fifth from the bottom of the list, the report said.

Aside from political instability, other culprits that contribute to persistent, widespread hunger include bias against women, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the absence of stable education and health care infrastructures, according to the report.

For example, while South Asian countries such as India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan all have lower child mortality rates than Sub-Saharan Africa, and a larger percentage of their populations meet daily calorie requirements, the South Asian region has the world s highest child malnutrition rate. Over half of all infants born with low birth weight are born in South Asia.

Cultural practices in this region often favour men over women, the report said. For example, in parts of India, male members of a household usually eat first at mealtime, leaving for female household members whatever remains. Children of undernourished and anaemic mothers have a higher risk of being born underweight.

Countries like Swaziland demonstrate that hunger rates are affected by other health issues arising from poverty and an inadequate health care infrastructure. Swaziland has been devastated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in recent years, according to the report, and it ranks third from the bottom of the list in terms of progress.

What will it take to address the health and poverty setbacks in countries like Swaziland? A green revolution for Africa would be very helpful, as we had in South Asia a few decades ago, Wiesmann said, referring to the agricultural shift that took place in the 1970s and early 1980s, back when [South Asia] was an even more serious hunger region than Sub-Saharan Africa.

In the meantime, development professionals from around the globe are collaborating on strategies for nutritional self-sufficiency, such as community-based therapeutic care (CTC) centres, now viewed as a generally accepted practice by the World Health Organisation. Unlike special feeding centres, which are often spaced far in between villages, CTCs are developed within villages and carried out by local health providers. Thus, patients no longer have to spend up to 30 days away from home for their treatment, noted the report.

Advancements like CTCs offer viable strategies for addressing hunger issues at the local level in struggling developing countries. But ongoing attention at the macro level is also necessary, experts agree.

In September 2000, leaders of 189 countries signed the Millennium Development Declaration, a global plan to meet the needs of the world s most poor and hungry by 2015, said Wiesmann. We are now midway between the declaration and the deadline.

By calling attention to countries and regions that are not on track to meet the goals for reducing hunger and child mortality, we hope the Global Hunger Index motivates world and national leaders to take increased action to ensure that the goals are achieved.

 

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