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War on Hunger More Smoke Than Roast - Social and Economic Policy - Global Policy Forum War on Hunger More Smoke Than Roast
by Jacques Diouf
Inter Press Service
March 2002
Alleviating hunger in the world is not only a moral imperative for the global society; it is in the economic and security interests of all societies. Hunger is often not just a result of but also a contributing factor to conflict and civil strife, and it has a direct influence on uncontrolled immigration and urbanization. Five years ago, at the World Food Summit (WFS) in Rome, 185countries pledged to make all the necessary efforts at the national and international levels to halve the number of hungry people in the world by 2015, from about 800 million to approximately 400 million. Unfortunately, however, even if some progress has been made, the number of hungry persons is declining at too slow a rate to meet the WFS target. Of course, this picture does not mean that significant strides have not been made in alleviating poverty and food insecurity. During the past 30 years, the lives of millions have been improved. In addition, most countries have managed to reduce the percentage of hungry people in the general population.
DECADE OF CONVERGENCE
In the past 10 years, there has been an impressive convergence throughout the international community towards recognizing poverty eradication as an overarching goal in the development effort. However, despite pronouncements and declarations, the cause of the hungry, who are the poorest of the poor, has not yet received the attention it deserves in the development assistance community. No poverty alleviation program can be effective if it does not focus on undernourished people. The effectiveness of education is compromised when children are hungry. Hunger also has deleterious effects on work productivity, on health, and on overalleconomic growth. Unless hunger is fought decisively and in a sustained manner, there will be no significant inroads into poverty alleviation. Seventy percent of the poor and the hungry live in rural areas and derive their livelihoods directly or indirectly from agriculture. Development of agriculture is thus an indispensable element of income growth and employment generation, a prerequisite for sound economic growth. And yet, this basic lesson seems to escape many policy makers. The strong negative trends in the 1990sof both Official Development Assistance and development lending to agriculture provide sad evidence of this fact.
INSUFFICIENT INVESTMENT
FAO research shows that the gross agricultural investment in developing countries is 12 percent below the minimum necessary to achieve the World Food Summit goal. Moreover, the share of external resources in the form of aid or loans to the agricultural sector of developing countries is on the decline. Total lending to agriculture and rural development by the World Bank and Regional Financial Institutions amounted to USD 3.5 billion in 1999 while OECD countries spent USD 361 billion during the same period supporting their own farmers. Mobilizing the political will to fight hunger is a basic condition to achieve the goal of the World Food Summit. It implies making hunger eradication a priority and an integral part of development policy. Furthermore, while the technical solutions are at hand, more resources are needed to improve the livelihoods of the rural poor, which are intrinsically linked to agriculture and related areas, even more if the agriculture sector of the developing countries is to be competitive at the national and international levels.
POLICY DEBATE
There is an ongoing debate, especially among industrialized nations, on the merits and justifications of policies to protect declining agriculture and rural sectors. It is important that any policy instruments chosen by high-income countries in pursuit of these objectives be used in ways that do not cause harm to others, especially low-income countries. Investment in rural areas of developing countries is necessary not only for alleviation of poverty and hunger, but also to slow migration from rural to urban areas as well as from poor to relatively richer countries. In fact, their is a legitimate concern that rapid urbanization, and the costs this imposes on entire societies, may have even worsened the rural sector by diverting investments from rural to urban areas. When investment in agriculture and rural development is neglected, the rural-urban income gap will widen further, and the result is an increase in rural-to-urban and south-north migration. The basic technical tools to achieve the objective of the World Food Summit are in place, but political will and resources have so far been lacking. We need to galvanize both. (March 2002)
*Jacques Diouf is the director-general of FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
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