As Hunger Continues to Affect Millions, UN Pushes for Zero Hunger

Last month, the Social Weather Station released the results of its survey showing that some 11.7% of Filipino families they surveyed experienced hunger in the last three months of 2015.  I checked the official statistics and found that some 6% of Filipino families experienced hunger in their last survey in 2012.

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While the same survey indicated that hunger incidence has decreased, it's still quite surprising considering that the government continues to take pride in the fast economic growth in the country.  In fact, the same survey reported that the number of those who experienced involuntary hunger at least once a week (severe hunger) went up from the third-quarter figure.

Hunger is, in fact, a global problem. The United Nations reported that 1 in 9 people is chronically undernourished.  That is some 800 million people in total, and most of them are in developing countries. The highest number of hungry people are in Asia, accounting for two-thirds of the total.

It's good to know that world leaders have formally agreed to tackle hunger at its roots.  They adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development last September 2015, which includes 17 global goals to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all. Each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. 

No less than the UN Secretary-General pushed for the eradication of hunger by 2030.  He proposed a Zero Hunger Challenge which calls on all stakeholders to "work together in an integrated manner, and recognizes that Zero Hunger can only be achieved if all elements are taken together: zero stunting and good nutrition, and access to adequate food for everyone at all times; sustainable, inclusive and resilient food systems, with no loss or waste of food; and support for smallholders, especially women and young people." (zerohungerchallenge.org) 

Below is a diagram of the five objectives of the Zero Hunger Challenge.

Let me end this piece by quoting the UN Secretary-General when he issued this challenge to world leaders.  “In a world of plenty, no one, not a single person, should go hungry. I invite all of you to join me in working for a future without hunger, Zero Hunger would boost economic growth, reduce poverty and safeguard the environment. It would foster peace and stability,”

Sources of data and information:
The Social Weather Stations
Philippine Statistical Authority
The United Nations
Zero Hunger Challenge

Despite high food prices, obesity remains a global epidemic - World Bank report.

Obesity and overweight continue to be a global epidemic problem even in times of high food prices.

This is according to the latest edition of the Food Price Watch released by the World Bank Group.  The report noted that while global food prices declined in the last six months, these are still very high and are close to their historical peaks. It is because of this that people choose to serve cheaper and less nutritious food for their family.

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“Unhealthy food tends to be cheaper than healthy ones, like junk food in developed countries. When poor people with some disposable income in developing countries try to cope with high and increasingly volatile food prices, they also tend to choose cheap food that is high in calories but without much nutritious value,” said Otaviano Canuto, World Bank Group’s Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. “Half of the world's overweight people live in just nine countries -- China, United States, Germany, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and Turkey -- evidence that obesity is not an epidemic restricted only to rich countries.”

The report further warned that with high and volatile food prices, millions will continue to suffer from poor nutrition, whether it is hunger, undernutrition or obesity which can cause premature death. In 2008, the number of overweight adults was 1.46 billion, of which 508 million were obese. Even conservative estimates see that number rising to 2.16 billion for overweight adults and nearly doubling to 1.12 billion for obese by 2030 across all regions and in countries like China and India.

What is sad though is that the report pointed that despite the gravity of this problem, it is not evident that reducing obesity is among the top global policy priorities. Responses to the obesity epidemic have ranged from doing nothing to trying to promote healthier behaviors through taxes, bans or restrictions on certain foods and awareness campaigns. There have also been extreme cases in Japan where fines have been imposed to employees exceeding certain waistline limits.

The State of Food Insecurity in the World

I came across some hunger facts recently and I want to share them with you.  Most of these came from the report titled, The State of Food Insecurity in the World published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in 2012.

The significant findings of the study are: 

from fao.org

• About 870 million people are estimated to have been undernourished in the period 2010–12. This represents 12.5 percent of the global population, or one in eight people. The vast majority of these – 852 million – live in developing countries, where the prevalence of undernourishment is now estimated at 14.9 percent of the population. Undernourishment in the world is unacceptably high. 

• The global number of hungry people declined by 132 million between 1990-92 and 2010-12, or from 18.6 percent to 12.5 percent of the world's population, and from 23.2 percent to 14.9 percent in developing countries - putting the MDG target within reach if adequate, appropriate actions are taken.

• Asia and the Pacific have the largest share of the world's hungry people at 563 million but the numbers have been going down for decades due to regional economic growth.  Undernourishment decreased by 30% in the past two decades and despite population growth in the region, the prevalence of undernourishment decreased from 23.7% to 13.9%.

• Developed regions also saw the number of hungry rise, from 13 million in 2004-2006 to 16 million in 2010-2012, reversing a steady decrease in previous years from 20 million in 1990-1992.

The report also noted that strong economic growth is important in the fight to reduce hunger. Regions that experienced growth in the past decades also rapidly reduced hunger incidence.  However, economic growth must reach and involve the poor through increased employment and other income-generating opportunities.

from fao.org

One of the areas the report pointed out is agricultural growth which is particularly effective in reducing hunger and malnutrition in poor countries since most of the poor depend on agriculture and related activities for at least part of their livelihoods.  Women should also be involved in these development, the report said, since they have more control over household income and more money tends to be spent on items that improve nutrition and health.

The report further suggested that social protection systems are needed to ensure that the most vulnerable are not left behind and can also contribute to and benefit from economic growth.  Programs such as cash transfers, food vouchers or health insurance are needed for the most vulnerable who often cannot take immediate advantage of growth opportunities. Social protection can improve nutrition for young children - an investment that will pay off in the future with better educated, stronger and healthier adults. With effective social protection complementing inclusive economic growth, hunger and malnutrition can be eliminated. 

You may download the full report from the FAO website here.

More Pinoys Get Hungry

While I was doing my blog on hunger myths and facts, I also checked on the state of hunger in the Philippines. I wanted to know how our country fares in terms of hunger.  I came upon the results of the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) on hunger which shows a rise in the number of hungry Filipinos.

According to the survey which was conducted in September of this year, one in five households or 21.5 percent which is an estimated 4.3 million families, claimed to have experienced having nothing to eat the three months prior to the survey.  This is the highest incidence during the current administration and also higher by  7 percent of the 13-year average of 14 percent.

The SWS divided hunger into severe or moderate.  Severe are those who experienced hunger "often" or "always" while moderate refers to those who experienced it "only once" or " a few times" in the last three months.  Severe hunger was highest in Metro Manila where some 6.3 percent of families claimed they had nothing to eat.  Moderate hunger also increased in the region at 16.7 percent.   

For this survey, the SWS polled 1,200 household heads or 300 respondents for each of four regions: Metro Manila, Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The process of choosing respondents is random, to assure neutrality.

While this is the highest recorded hunger percentage during this administration, the SWS noted that it is still below the record-high 24 percent registered during the past administration.  Earlier, the current President expressed dismay about the results of the survey done in March.  At least that is better than the reaction of the President before him who said that she also experienced hunger especially when she forgets to eat.  Oh well...

The Truth About the 11 Most Common Hunger Myths

I received a very interesting article from the World Food Programme about the common misconceptions about hunger.  I want to share it with you the highlights of the said article.

Myth 1:  There isn’t enough food to feed the world. 

Reality: There is enough food in the world today for everyone to have the nourishment necessary for a healthy and productive life. There is, however, a need to be more efficient, sustainable, and fair in how we grow and distribute food. This means supporting small-scale farmers who make up the majority of farmers throughout the developing world – and ensuring that they have fair access to markets.

Myth 2:  Resolving hunger means ensuring people have enough to eat.
Reality: Hunger also involves the type of food you eat. Good nutrition means having the right combination of nutrients and calories needed for healthy development. It's especially important for infants, pregnant women and young children.

Myth 3: Droughts and other natural disasters are to blame for hunger. 
Reality: Communities that build irrigation systems, storage facilities, and roads to connect them to markets are able to improve harvests. Then people can survive even during times of drought. Nature is only one factor when it comes to hunger. The proportion of food crises that are linked to human causes has more than doubled since 1992. Conflict is often at the heart of today’s worst food crises.

Myth 4: Hunger exists when food is unavailable in shops and markets.
Reality: People can go hungry even when there's plenty of food around. Often it's a question of access - they can’t afford food or they can’t get to local markets. One way we can help is through cash transfers and electronic vouchers, which give people the ability to buy nutritious foods in local markets.

Myth 5: All of the world’s hungry live in Africa.
Reality: Of the world’s nearly one billion hungry, over half live in Asia and the Pacific Hunger is also a relevant issue in the United States, where 50 million Americans are food insecure.

Myth 6: Too many people go hungry in my own country for me to worry about hunger abroad.
Reality: One in seven people in the world are hungry, which means one in seven people can’t create, study, or reach their full potential as human beings. That affects all of us. Hunger slows progress on other important areas that connect nations, including security.

Myth 7: Hunger and famine are not easy to predict and can't be prepared for.
Reality: Tools exist to monitor and predict trends in food production as well as food prices. For example, the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) analyzes meteorological and economic factors to alert the world to the possibility of hunger hotspots and famine.

Myth 8: Hunger is basically a health issue.
Reality: This issue also affects education and the economy. Hungry children struggle to focus, learn, or even attend school. Without education, it's much harder for them to grow up and contribute to the growth of the national economy. A study in Guatemala found that boys who received fortified food before the age of three grew up to have wages 46 percent higher than those in a control group.

Myth 9: People are only hungry during emergencies or disasters.
Reality: Emergencies only account for eight percent of the world’s hungry. There are close to one billion hungry people in the world who do not make the headlines and yet they go to bed hungry every night. This is why long-term efforts like school meals programmes are so important.

Myth 10: There are more pressing global issues than hunger.
Reality: When populations are hungry, economies suffer, people fight, and farmers can’t grow their crops effectively. We need to tackle hunger to be able to resolve environmental, economic, and security issues.

Myth 11: There is nothing we can do to help hungry people.
Reality: There’s plenty we can do, even as individuals. Organizations like WFP need constant support and awareness-building efforts at the community level. You can help with that. Find out other ways to get involved here.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide.  It is part of the United Nations system and is voluntarily funded.  For 2011, the WFP aims to reach more than 90 million people with food assistance in more than 70 countries. Around 10,000 people work for the organization, most of them in remote areas, directly serving the hungry poor.

WeFeedBack

I recently joined a social network with a purpose.  It's a project from the World Food Program that aims to fight hunger in a revolutionary way.

It's called WeFeedBack, an innovative global initiative using the power of our favorite food - French fries, burgers, chicken, chocolate cake (we all have a favorite) - to provide meals to hungry schoolchildren worldwide, helping them grow strong minds and bodies.

So how does the program work? First, you use the Feedback Calculator.  Enter your favorite food, estimate the cost, and you’ll instantly see how many children will receive a hot meal if you donate it or ”feedback”!  For example, I entered my favorite pansit Malabon which I estimated at PhP45 or $1.  I entered it in my feedback calculator and found out that it could feed 4 kids.  The next step is to donate the same amount (which I haven't done yet, sorry) and then we could see its impact.

You may want to join my network and let's help feed the hungry children.  You may track our "network impact" or how many children we are feeding and what we're giving them.

WeFeedback is an innovative, global campaign building on the premise that if we all do a little, we can achieve a lot. To put it in a nutshell, it’s about sharing food and changing lives.

It's the People Again Who Should Make Sacrifices

The TV newscasts are filled with it. People lining in the streets, wet markets and other places to buy rice. Rice that are within their means. It all happened after the country's agriculture secretary announced that we better cut down on our rice consumption or we will end up with out rice! All hell broke loose as soon as after he said those words.

I thought at that time how stupid it was that instead of government doing something about the impending rice shortage, the secretary himself would ask the people to eat less rice. What's even weird is that he even asked food centers to offer half cup of rice instead of one cup per meal (we serve rice by cups). It's almost as if he's asking Filipinos to go on a force diet!!!

It was almost a joke until I saw the news stories and find my countrymen falling in line for hours on end just to get three kilos of rice a day at a price they could afford. Of course there were available rice but these were priced at no less than 30 pesos per kg. for the cheaper kind and 45 pesos for the more fancy kind such as Jasmine rice.

Why not buy the 30 pesos kind, you ask them? Well, minimum daily wage in the country is 300 pesos something or some 7 US dollars. That is, if the company one is in gives the minimum wage. But most companies in the country are small and medium enterprises so they end up exempted from paying the minimum wage.

With so many filipinos classified by the World Bank as earning less than a dollar a day, buying those readily available rice is out of the question. So they endure the heat (it's summer here) and the lack of a proper system of distribution by the food authority just to get rice that they could afford and don't go hungry for the day. So bad was the situation that at one time, those who were not able to get rice started weeping and begging like we were back in the dark ages!

Speaking of hunger, a few months ago there was report that some 70 percent of Filipinos go to sleep hungry because they don't have the means to buy food. And what did our president say about this? Well, she said that sometimes when she's too busy at work she forgets to eat too and stay hungry. I think that there's a vast difference between being hungry because you don't have money to buy food and forgetting to eat because you're busy making money.

Now here's even worse. A report came out saying that we do not have enough rice because there's so many of us! So we must all make sacrifices and stop making children who will compete for food in the future.

It's always the people who are the source of our woes!

Can't we stop and look if distribution of our resources as well as governance have in any way contributed to this problem and not just too many Filipinos?