Global Development the Focus of 2009 Hunger Report

Nov 25th, 2008 5:26 PM UTC
By Beth Adler

On Monday, one of ONE’s partners – Bread for the World – released their annual Hunger Report. The report, entitled Hunger 2009: Global Development: Charting a New Course, focuses on how particular changes and investment in approaches to development can combat the global hunger crisis.

In addition to the global financial crisis, the world is in the midst of a food and a fuel crisis. In less than two years, the number of people who are hungry globally has increased by 75 million, and 100 million people are at risk of being pushed into poverty. Paying more for food – especially for poor families who already spend half or more of their income on food – means shifting to fewer, less nutritious meals per day, and reducing expenditures on other necessities like education and health care.

As the Hunger Report explains, there are several causes for the increase in food prices including an increased demand from people who have moved out of poverty, drought in major grain-producing regions like Australia, fuel price hikes, and years of poor policy choices by the developed world – like subsidies and tariffs – that have ravaged agricultural sectors in the developing world.

The Hunger Report proposes two primary solutions for ensuring long-term global food security. The first is to invest in agriculture in the developing world. Historically, the U.S. and other Official Development Assistance (ODA) providers have addressed hunger by investing in food aid. While in certain emergent situations food aid is vital, the long cycle of hunger and poverty that has left millions vulnerable to the smallest increase in food costs can only be addressed by developing local agricultural sectors.

Investing in agriculture means not only providing smallholder farmers with tools, seeds, fertilizer, and training, but it means building infrastructure like transportation systems, irrigation systems, and food storage facilities in developing countries that will facilitate getting goods to market. Investment in agriculture will lead to higher profits for farmers and lower dependence on food aid and food imports. The World Bank estimates that growth in the agricultural sector is twice as effective at reducing poverty as growth in other sectors. Despite this, the growth of agricultural incomes in Africa has averaged less than 1% over the last 25 years, the lowest rate in the world and less than half that of any other region, due to a lack of agricultural investment.

The second recommendation is to reform and align U.S. foreign assistance and development policy. The report calls for making global development and poverty reduction particular goals of U.S. foreign policy and U.S. development assistance, distinct from political, military, and security goals. The report also calls on the U.S. government to use the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the primary guidelines that shape U.S. development policy and foreign assistance. In addition, the report calls for development assistance to be provided in partnership with recipient countries. If recipient countries are involved in the process of determining what needs to be funded, rather than the developed world dictating how development should take place, it is more likely that development assistance will be effective.

The full report can be found here; Bread for the World’s press release <> about the report can be found here.

-Beth Adler

TAGS: Agriculture, Bread for the World, Policy News, World Food Crisis