ISSUE - ENDING HUNGER BY ACHIEVING FOOD SECURITY, IMPROVING NUTRITION AND PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight targets created by the United Nations in 2000, aiming at solving major issues throughout the world by 2015. Successively, new global problems were identified, and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals were created. Goal 1 of the Millennium Goals was to “Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger” by half, and this target was met five years ahead of 2015 as, since 1990, the economic situation of 1 billion people has improved massively. Nonetheless, hunger is still an issue nowadays as 11,3% of the world’s population is hungry.
The right to adequate food – meaning the absence of hunger – has become a significant international law, and originates from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that all people have the right to adequate standards of living for their health and well-being, including food. Moreover, the 1996 Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expresses that being free of hunger is a vital right for everyone, so food production and distribution should respect this right. If there are health inequalities in terms of access to health due to difference income and power, health and well-being are not available in the same way, and this might also involve the accessibility to food. Therefore, in order to enable the improvement of our standards of living, to enhance development and protect our human rights, hunger should be eradicated.
PROBLEM
According to the World Food Program, 795 million people do not have enough food to have enough food to have a healthy lifestyle, and in developing countries about 13% of the population is malnourished. This number has improved since 2010, where the total number of hungry people was around 925 million, but there are still places where undernourishment and bad quality food are common. Out of the geographic areas of developing countries, Asia is the continent with the hungriest people (2/3 of the world’s hunger). While the situation is slowly improving in Southern Asia, an increase in hunger in Western Asia was reported in 2015. Yet, the area where there is the highest percentage of malnourished population is in Sub-Saharan Africa, where ¼ people are ill-fed.
Below are some relevant facts about hunger:
- The issue of hunger is particularly relevant to children, as it is estimated that the development of ¼ children is impeded, and this number can rise to 1/3 children in developing countries. In fact, in developing countries in 2015, 100 million children were underweight.
- Hunger is the worst health problem as it kills more than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
- Teachers in public schools have stated that ¾ of their students come to school hungry, and 1/6 children are malnourished because their food is unhealthy or inappropriate for them.
As shown on the chart, hunger is decreasing but is still present in our societies. The geographical area where it is more present is Sub-Saharan Africa, followed by South Asia, indicating that it is most common in Africa and Asia. In fact, the country where there is the highest deficit of calories per person per day is Zambia, located in Southern Africa, followed by the Central African Republic and North Korea. In this chart, developed countries are not included as they are expected to have a very low percentage of hunger, implying that North America, Europe and Oceania are excluded from this list.
Among children, the issue of hunger involves three main aspects: stunting (being too short for their age), wasting (dangerously thin for their age), underweight (too light for age). Stunting indicates severe malnutrition (whether this occurs when the mother is still pregnant or during childhood), and its impact is considered irreversible after the first 1000 days of life. One of the worst countries from this perspective is Burundi, where 57,5% children under 5 were affected by stunting in 2010. Here again, the nations most affect by this problem are located across Africa (especially Sub-Saharan Africa) and Asia (most Southern Asia), as well as in Central America (especially in Guatemala). Moving on to wasting, it is often a sign of quick weight loss. The country that recorded the highest prevalence of wasting among children under 5 is South Sudan, with a percentage of 22.7% “wasted” children in 2015. Lastly, undernourishment involves insufficient energy intake on the long-term. Although the situation has greatly improved since 1990 – 25% of the world’s population was undernourished in 1990 vs. 15% now – Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa still experience challenges in solving undernourishment in children, as can be observed in the graph below:
SOLUTIONS
According to the organization “Concern” in the United Kingdom, there are five main steps to the eradication of poverty, and they could not only end hunger but contribute to sustainable development. The first target is investing to improve rural infrastructure so that agricultural production in developing countries can become more effective and feed more people. The second step to take is to double productivity and income for small farmers as to enhance their business. Indeed, they should be guaranteed an easy access to the market, their land should be protected, and female farmers should be integrated in this field to reduce gender inequality. Next, agriculture and food systems should be made productive and sustainable because they should not have an impact on climate change and extreme weather conditions, considering that these aspects also negatively affect agriculture itself. The fourth goal is no more malnutrition, especially for vulnerable people. The nutritional needs of each individual should be respected to ensure their health, strength and well-being. Lastly, no hunger should be achieved by enabling everyone to have access to sufficient nutritious food every day.
LINK TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
“Zero Hunger” is the 2nd Sustainable Development Goals, so solving this issue is directly linked to one of the United Nations’ main targets for 2030. Without achieving this goal, sustainable development cannot be achieved as people will still be starving, populations will still be poor (the three main aspects of poverty are food, clothing and shelter), and good-health and well-being will not be fully attained.
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