Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Bloggers Unite-Hunger and Hope: You Don’t Have to Feel Powerless!
There is no greater enemy to the world’s underprivileged and forgotten than the scourge of hunger. Though the great bounty of our planet could adequately nourish each living human several times over, United Nations statistics show that in 2003 no fewer than 923 million people went hungry.
This figure refers to those who are undernourished, defined as those imbibing less food energy than is necessary to maintain good health. Aside from the deterioration of physical health which comes as a direct result of insufficient caloric intake, there are strong indirect effects as malnutrition weakens the immune system and renders victims highly susceptible to illness and disease. The problem is compounded as contagious disease may advance easily, wreaking havoc on high-density populations of undernourished peoples. Establishing a basic threshold of universal nutrition is therefore a critical step in the battle to promote human health.
For those 500 million people who reside in the most extreme poverty, there is no more essential a first step than to eliminate malnutrition and thereby reduce the high incidence of illness that attends it.
And indeed, advances in many areas as well as an enhanced public understanding of the issues at hand mean that an eradication of world hunger is more within reach than at perhaps any other time in history. Not all have shared equally in the new riches, but over the past half-century many countries have amassed impressive new wealth, greatly expanding the base of donor countries of international aid. If this newly broadened base were to allocate a mere 0.7% of its income for development assistance, the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations hold that extreme poverty can be halved by 2015.
So how do we pursue these macro policy goals in the business of the everyday? The answer is simple: we make more noise!
Private donations are admirable and are to be continued. But the 0.7% goal will not be attained in the absence of increased official development assistance.
Our leaders are ever so quick to pledge their commitment to international development, and to eloquently evoke their compassion for the world’s hungry and impoverished. But we all know that actions speak louder than words, and thus far they have manifestly failed to walk the talk. It is a wonderful and too often forgotten feature of our democratic establishment that our leaders are answerable to us. Thus far they have been able to shirk their responsibilities to amend the outrages of abject misery because they have not received the necessary signals that nothing less than their political survival is at stake. If we speak loudly, if we apply a calculated and relentless pressure and if we are so bold as to cry out in a unified voice that we will end extreme poverty and hunger in our time, they will have no choice but to respond.
What a better time to begin the campaign than on this international day of Hunger, and of Hope.
To read more articles about this topic visit Bloggersunite.org special page for Hunger Day.
