Fight Against World Hunger Making Progress, UN Exec Says

“The solution to hunger is not quite rocket science,” the head of the world’s largest humanitarian organization leading the fight against world hunger said at a Sept. 29 luncheon.

“Many nations have defeated hunger, and it doesn’t require some great new scientific breakthrough like discovering a cure for cancer. It is, on one level, quite simple: People need access to an adequate amount of nutritious food,” said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program.

Sheeran, leader of the United Nations program since 2007, runs an agency that annually feeds more than 90 million people in more than 70 countries. Its primary focus is to help hungry people who cannot help themselves, with an emphasis on women and girls who suffer disproportionately from hunger and malnutrition, but also to aid victims of war and natural disasters, orphans and families affected by HIV/AIDS, and schoolchildren in poor communities.

Funded by voluntary donations, WFP is on the frontlines of crisis areas such as Darfur, Pakistan, Haiti and Cambodia, working to solve the problem of hunger at “the worst end of the challenge where people may die tomorrow if they don’t have an intervention by the world,” she said.

Headquartered in Rome, the agency is the UN’s logistics arm with a fleet of ships, aircraft and trucks to move food and other assistance where most needed. Since its founding in 1963, WFP has fed more than 1.6 billion of the world’s poorest people and invested nearly $42 billion in development and emergency relief. It partners with nearly 3,000 non-government agencies to distribute food.

Citing her optimism in the agency’s mission, Sheeran said: “I’ve seen a revolution in the way hunger is approached in the past two years. The numbers are going in the right direction … the first drop in 15 years.

“I believe we can create a sustainable model (to ending hunger). New kinds of partnerships are forging and changing the face of hunger and solutions that are changing the dynamics of this first Millennium (Development) goal,” she said.

Adopted by the UN 10 years ago, the Millennium Declaration established eight goals for completion by 2015 as a promise to the world’s poorest, most vulnerable and marginalized people. The first goal is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger through WFP food assistance, including cash and voucher transfers to the hungry, especially following natural disasters.

“People who don’t have food only have three options: They can migrate, they can revolt or face starvation and death. We must be driven with a common purpose to solve the problem,” Sheeran said.

She offered 10 new approaches to help unleash permanent solutions to adequate food for the hungry including seeking a world commitment to humanitarian action, providing school meals as economic incentives to parents, creating safety nets for countries that have no disaster plans to feed victims, connecting local farmers to markets and providing adequate food for everyone.

Stressing the need for leaders of nations where hunger is rampant to step forth and change the face of hunger, Sheeran expressed optimism for the challenge facing those without food. “I believe we are at a tipping point where we can harness the power of partnerships, technology, political will and individual commitment and end hunger.”

-- Terry Hill, [email protected]