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Despite Gains, Millions go hungry. Our Mumbai Bureau 31 DEC The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has just released statisitics on the latest number of undernourished people in the world. The study shows that the number has been steadily decreasing (see figure).  The survey details that the no. of undernourished people has decreased by approximately 19% since 1992. However regions of the Sub-saharan Africa are particularly hard hit with more than 260 mn people, about 1/3 of the population lacking adequate food. Also this region has seen an increasing trend over the last 40 years with an increase of 30% in the last twenty years. The most widely recognized cause of malnutrition is poverty -- the lack of money to buy food or the means, land, resources, and knowledge needed to grow it. Yet, there are other factors at work as well, both environmental and social. A shortage of potable water or water for agriculture -- a shortage felt by more than one quarter of the world�s people -- is likely to be reflected in poor child and adult health. Local water scarcity can be more devastating than food shortages because it is more difficult and expensive to trade water among regions than it is to trade agricultural products. Another reason for an increasing trend in Africa is due to the various wars & conflicts prevalent in the region. The "natural" famines of the past have been replaced with famines created as a result of localized wars and the consequent displacement of civilians. Often those who forment these wars use starvation intentionally as a weapon. Even countries that are not experiencing conflicts are affected if they are neighbors of areas in upheaval. Hungry refugees quickly become an entire region�s problem. Refugees suffer particularly serious effects because they usually have no rights to land or other resources and are often concentrated in areas that have marginal soils and scarce water resources. Just as troubling, nations in the developed world are showing less and less interest in sending aid of any sort (other than military) to the less developed world. Figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development document a continuing decline in public aid from well-off nations to developing countries.  |
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