WORLD HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION

Richard J. Estes
University of Pennsylvania

In September 1987 the Marxist government of Ethiopia announced that famine
was once again an imminent reality for the world's poorest nation. Drought
had returned to the countryside, fields of grain were wilting, and hundreds
were already dead. More than 5 million persons were believed to be at
imminent risk of starvation from yet another famine, the fourth to strike
the country since the ousting of Emperor Haile Selassie I by a military
coup in 1974. An urgent plea was made by the Ethiopian government for
Western nations to come forward with large donations of foodstuffs,
emergency medical supplies, and other assistance to prevent a recurrence
of the human devastation that swept the country during the famine of
1984-1985. At least 1 million Ethiopians perished during that famine,
with countless more left chronically disabled and homeless. The belief
among world food relief organizations was that the Ethiopian government's
request substantially underestimated the seriousness of the nation's new
food crisis.

By the end of 1990 the return of widespread famine to other areas of
Africa also appeared imminent. Only the great Soviet famines of 1918-1922
and 1932-1934, in which an estimated 5 to 10 million persons died from
starvation, compares in magnitude to the suffering experienced by the
nations of the Sahel and Sub-Saharan regions during the decade of the
1980s. All reports indicate that the African droughts of the near future
may prove more intractable than earlier ones; ultimately, more Africans
are expected to die from hunger and malnutrition in the 1990s than did
those who perished
from hunger during the preceding 100 years.

As devastating as the current famines in Africa have been, the
incidence of hunger and malnutrition is greater in the poorest nations of
East and South Asia. In The State of the World's Children, 1987, UNICEF
Executive Director James Grant noted that "in the last two years more
children died [from hunger-related causes] in India and Pakistan than in
all the 46 nations of Africa together. In 1986, more children died in
Bangladesh than in Ethiopia, more in Mexico than in Sudan, more in
Indonesia than in all eight drought-stricken countries of the Sahel." At
the June 1987 Beijing Ministerial Meeting of the United Nations' World Food
Council the United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)
revised its estimates of the number of hungry people in the world
upward to more than 475 million; a World Bank study reported at the same
meeting placed the number closer to 720 million. Both organizations agreed
that children were among the most severely affected--that, each day, more
than 40,000 children die of hunger-related causes.

The extent of world hunger is staggering. The authors of Ending
World Hunger estimated that,
as of 1985:

* more than 1 billion people worldwide are chronically hungry;

* every year 13 to 18 million people die as a result of hunger and
starvation -- 24 every minutes, 18 of whom are children under five
years of age.

By comparison:

* more people died from hunger between 1983 and 1985 than were
killed in World War I and War II combined;

* the number of people who die every few days of hunger and
starvation is equivalent to the number who were killed instantly
by the Hiroshima bomb; and

* the worst earthquake in modern history, in China in 1976, killed
242,000 people. Hunger kills that many people every seven days.

Slowed economic growth in industrial nations, political instability
in the famine-affected nations, and failed efforts at social development
are all believed to be major factors responsible for the recent escalations
in the numbers of hungry people worldwide. Even in the richest nation on
earth, the United States, the number of hungry people is estimated to
exceed 20 million persons, about 9 percent of the total population. The
Physicians' Task Force on Hunger in America estimated that at least 15
million Americans were living below the poverty line without food stamp or
other forms of nutritional assistance. In the United States, as in many
developing nations, the problems underlying hunger have less to do with
food scarcity than with the price and accessibility to food that is
available.

Overdependence on the exportation of cash crops to other nations in
exchange for hard currencies has added considerably to the food shortage
problems of some developing nations, including to those of Ethiopia, India,
and China. In many food-"deficit" nations, food grains and other
agricultural products are produced in sufficient quantities but are not
available for local consumption.

The Hunger Project, as well as other international organizations
concerned with world hunger, predict that the number of hunger-related
deaths will continue to rise until the end of the century. Each group has
advocated its own program of emergency assistance to food-deficit nations.
All agree, however, that only a combination of carefully implemented
approaches over the long term can succeed in significantly reducing the
causes of malnutrition worldwide. In addressing the problem of world
hunger prior to the recent African famines, the Brandt Commission on
International Development
Issues concluded:

Mankind has never before had such ample technical and financial
resources for coping with hunger and poverty. The immense task can be
tackled once the necessary collective will is mobilized. What is
necessary can be done, and must be done.

With in the United States, the 1980 Presidential Commission on World
Hunger arrived at the same conclusion: "If decisions and actions well
within the capability of nations and people working together were
implemented, it would be possible to eliminate the worst aspects of hunger
and
malnutrition by the year 2000."

In December 1986 the Council on Foreign Relations and the Overseas
Development Council issued a joint Compact for African Development in which
they encouraged a highly activist posture on the part of the United States
in contributing to the resolution of the world hunger situation:

America has an opportunity to use publicly supported bilateral and
multilateral programs, together with its universities, foundations,
corporations, and private voluntary organizations, to help Africa in a
coherent, lasting way. We urge private groups to marshall their own
resources and to advocate a greater public response. We urge Congress
and the Executive Branch to act with foresight to express our country's
long-term interests in an Africa that can both survive short-term crises
and assume its place as a full participant in the world economy (p. 22).

Similar sentiments have been echoed for their governments by scholars
and political leaders
the world over.

Strategies Leading to the Elimination of World Hunger

The following suggestions are offered as beginning approaches to reducing
world hunger.

1. Social reform in the context of international social development must
begin with recognition that the most fundamental problems confronting
humanity, including the dual problems of poverty and hunger, are
political, social, and moral in nature. They are not exclusively
problems of resource supply or resource scarcity although, indeed,
* real ad serious limitations in available resources do exist. The vast
bulk of the evidence confirms that the planet already possesses the
material and technological resources that are needed to permanently rid
the world of hunger.

2. Global reforms in dealing with problems of world hunger will require
acceptance of our shared responsibility for one another's welfare.
The world simply has become too interdependent for any of us to turn
our back on the needs of our neighbors living in other areas of the
world. To do so bankrupts us morally; ultimately, the tragic
deprivations experienced by others can be expected to spread to our
homes as well.

3. Global food reforms will require a speedier and more complete
implementation of the economic reforms contained in the various
approaches that seek to establish a "New International Economic
Order." At a minimum, the initiatives that are adopted must
emphasize:

a. global cooperation rather than competition;

b. global sharing rather than squandering;

c. more generous and better sustained international subsidies
and programs of international development assistance
to the world's food-deficit nations.

Ideally, implementation of these strategies will be carried out on a
multilateral basis. They should also be formulated on an expanded
system of internationally financed agricultural loans, grants, and
technical assistance.

4. Global food reforms will require as well a significant shift from
nationalistic attitudes to those that place increased emphasis on
regionalism and internationalism.

5. Necessarily, existing international food and agricultural
institutions will need to be strengthened, and new ones that focus on
the underlying causes of hunger will need to be developed. Within the
next decade, for example, more effective global institutions will be
needed to:

a. promote global peace and cooperation, especially so that a
global plan for food security can be developed and
implemented;

b. promote, monitor, and control the use of nuclear energy for
peaceful purposes, including food production;

c. oversee international efforts at arms control and reduction
so that a greater share of the world's resources can be
committed to human survival rather than its destruction;

d. promote and protect internationally guaranteed human rights
of individual citizens against oppressive governments;

e. manage the global economy, especially in relation to the
flow of development and other resources between the
world's rich and poor nations;

f. promote access on the part of all nations to the food and
other resources that exist in the earth's seas and oceans
and, in time, in space;

g. implement a coherent international food policy for feeding
all of the world's hungry;

h. halt the high rates of population growth in food-deficit
nations; and

i. manage problems related to the preservation and
conservation of the world's physical environment, especially
those elements that are essential to a stable food supply.

6. To be effective, a global food strategy must respect national
sovereignty, and must promote the three objectives on which concerned
people everywhere agree: war prevention, economic security, and social
justice.

7. A new and more dramatic approach to closing the ever widening gap in
development between the world's richest and poorest nations must be
embarked upon. To be successful, such an approach must emphasize:

a. people working for and on behalf of themselves and for one
another within the context of their own history,
traditions, and national objectives;

b. nations, especially food-deficit countries, must decide for
themselves what their needs are and how the satisfaction
of those needs should best be pursued;

c. the international community must perceive its role to be
that of a "partner" in development, not as that of a
decision-maker or planner acting for or on behalf of what
they perceive to be in the best interests of food-deficit
nations;

d. an invigorated strategy leading to international food
reforms must emphasize the accomplishment of a broad range
of varied, but interrelated, social and economic
objectives. The simple reality is that, over the decade, many
developing nations have slipped more deeply into poverty as
a result of their efforts to emulate patters of
development found in economically advanced nations;

e. regionalism among developing nations should be strongly
encouraged as a basis for developing programs of mutual
aid, self-help, and cooperation.

8. To be effective on a global level, national agricultural and dietary
reforms must take place within the context of a larger, more fully
integrated, plan of world social development. To achieve its
objectives, this global social development strategy must

a. encompass development planning for all nations, not just
those of the South;

b. differentiate between the specialized development needs and
objectives of individual nations and groups of
agriculturally similar nations;

c. specify specific objectives that can be completed within
designated time intervals;

d. include a mechanism for ongoing review and revision of
planning efforts once implemented;

e. include a mechanism for continuous reporting to the word
community concerning progress in achieving world food
security objectives;

f. contain the mechanisms necessary to generate the financial
and human resources needed to finance development
worldwide.

9. The new strategy for global food reform must:

a. foster maximum self-reliance within each nation for
planning and implementing its own program of national
development;

b. foster mutual participation and cooperation among all the
world's nations in a co-equal partnership focused on
improving the adequacy of social provision for people
everywhere;

c. advance creative and flexible solutions to matters of
subnational, national, regional, and global social development;

d. emphasize working for the benefit of all of humanity, while
advancing the right of each nation to develop its own
approach to social development that does not do harm to
others.

To eliminate the current food crisis, serious consideration should be
given to the implementation of at least each of the following action
strategies.

Immediate Actions

1. The flow of international food, financial, technical assistance, and
other essential supplies to food-deficit nations must continue; so,
too, must the flow of medical assistance, help with the resettlement
of famine refugees, and help with other difficult physical, social, and
economic problems experienced by persons facing imminent starvation.

2. Methods for increasing food production in food deficit nations must
be found. Consideration should be given to such methods as:

a. the cultivation of new lands;

b. the use of less costly organic fertilizers;

c. increasing the supply of water for agricultural use;

d. improved food and water collection, distribution, and
storage facilities.

Actions for the Near Term (3-7 Years)

1. Food-deficit nations need help in developing agricultural reforms
that provide economic supports to small farmers and to women farmers,
groups that have been all but ignored in earlier development plans.

2. An increased emphasis must be placed on

a. vegetarianism, for North and South nations alike, rather
than the consumption of meet (production of each pound
of beef requires 20 pounds of grain);

b. a return to breast-feeding for infants rather than the use
of expensive and widely misused commercially packaged
formulae.

3. Critical attention must be given to the development of effective
water management policies and infrastructures within food-deficit
nations that depend either exclusively or primarily on rainfall for
crop irrigation. At a minimum such policies must include

a. the establishment of underground water storage facilities
and irrigation networks; and

b. the creation of cross-national irrigation systems that make
possible the transfer of critically needed water from
water-surplus nations to water-deficit nations.

4. Emphasis must also be placed on the conservation of food that is
already being produced in food-deficit countries. Currently, between
20 and 40 percent of the total food production of developing nations
is lost to pests, blight, and other forms of shrinkage because of
inadequate food storage, transportation, and distribution systems.

5. The steady migration of rural workers into the cities must be either
reversed or substantially slowed down so that the numbers of
food-dependent persons living in cities will be reduced while those
available for food production will be increased.

Actions for the Long Term

1. Multinational planning for ensuring global food supplies over the
long term must begin. Past efforts in these areas have faltered over
political or economic issues, but the global stakes are such that the
planning process must begin once again.

2. An international grain reserve designed to minimize the effects of
local crop failures must be established. With it, the volume of per
capita daily global food reserves must be increased.

3. Economically advanced nations need to cooperate with food-deficit
nations in establishing Agricultural Research Institutes within the
borders of LDC regions. The research agenda of these institutions,
among other topics, should focus on:

a. the development of new varieties of grains and other foods
that are resistant to drought, infestations, rodents,
molds, and other environmental stresses;

b. the development of highly nutritious foodstuffs other than
the grains and starches that can be grown quickly within
the limited growing seasons available to the arid nations
of the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa;

c. improved methods of cultivation, harvesting, storage, and
food transportation;

d. the development of more technologically appropriate farming
equipment, implements, and irrigation methods.

The research agenda of these institutes should also devote a major
share of their attention to studies of the transferability potential
of the agricultural methods that succeeded in helping 41 developing
nations become food self-sufficient since 1960. Through the use of
agricultural extension workers, these institutes should also serve as
centers of technical assistance to local farmers.

Nothing less than a major international commitment to eliminating
world hunger will prove effective in solving this most tragic of human
problems. Fortunately, the tools and resources needed to eliminate hunger
are already available to us; all that is required is for the nations of
the world to join together in pursuit of the goal. And only then can the
World Food Conference's Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and
Malnutrition, a document to which the majority of nations have already
committed themselves, be implemented:

Every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from
hunger and malnutrition in order to develop fully and maintain their
physical and mental faculties...Accordingly, the eradication of hunger
is a common objective of all the countries of the international
community, especially of the developed countries and others in a
position to help.

RESOURCE MATERIALS ON
WORLD HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION

BASIC BOOKS

Barraclough, Solon L. 1992. _An End to Hunger?: The Social Origins of Food
Strategies_. (London: Zed
Books, Ltd.).

Bennett, Jon. 1987. _The Hunger Machine: The Politics of Food_. (New York:
Polity Press).

Berg, Alan. 1987. _Malnutrition-What Can be Done?_ (Washington: World Bank).

Brandt, Willy. 1986. _World Armament and World Hunger: A Call for Action_.
(London: Gollancz).

Brown, Lester R. 1991. _State of the World, 1991_. (New York: W.W. Norton
Company).

Dreze, Jean and Amartya Sen. 1990. _The Political Economy of Hunger_. (New
York: Oxford University
Press).

Dreze, Jean and Amartya Sen. 1989. _Hunger and Public Action_. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press).

Eagleburger, Lawrence and Donald F. McHenry (co-chairs). 1985. _Compact for
African Development_. (Washington: ODC).

Eide, Asbjorn et al. 1984. _Food as a Human Right_ (Tokyo: United Nations
University).

Fenton, Thomas P. 1987. _Food, Hunger, Agribusiness: A Directory of
Resources_. (Maryknoll NY:
Orbis Books).

Forbes, Malcolm and Lois McPherson (co-editors). 1986. _Global Hunger: A
Look at the Problem and Potential Solutions_. (Evansville: University of
Evansville Press).

Gabel, Medard. 1979. _Ho-Ping: Food for Everyone_. (New York: Doubleday).

George, Susan. 1977. _How the Other Half Dies: The Real Reasons for World
Hunger_. (Montclair NJ:
Allanheld).

Griffin, Keith B. 1987. _World Hunger and the World Economy: and Other
Essays in Development
Economics_ (NY: Holmes & Meier).

Hunger Project. 1985. _Ending Hunger: An Idea Whose Time Has Come_. (New
York: Praeger).

Kellman, Mitchell. 1987. _World Hunger: A Neo-Malthusian Perspective_. (New
York: Praeger).

Kutzner, Patricia L. 1991. _World Hunger: A Reference Book_. (Santa Barbara:
Clio Books).

Lappe, Frances Moore and Joseph Collins. 1979. _World Hunger: Ten Myths_.
(San Francisco: Institute
for Food and Development Policy).

McNamara, Joseph S. (ed.). 1989. _The Politics of Hunger_ (Hillsdale MI:
Hillsdale College Press).

Newman, Lucile F. (ed.). 1990. _Hunger in History: Food Shortage, Poverty,
and Deprivation_. (New
York: Blackwell).

O'Neil, Onora. 1986. _Faces of Hunger: An Essay on Poverty, Justice, and
Development_. (London: G.
Allen and Unwin).

Physician Task Force on Hunger in America. 1985. _Hunger in America: The
Growing Epidemic_.
(Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press).

Reyes, Lilia and Laura DeKoven Waxman. 1987. _The Continuing Growth of
Hunger, Homelessness, and Poverty in America's Cities_. (Washington DC:
United States Conference of Mayors).

Twose, Nigel. 1984. _Cultivating Hunger_ (Oxford: OXFAM, 1984).

U.S. Presidential Commission on World Hunger. 1980. _Overcoming World
Hunger: Report of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger_. (Washington:
Government Printing Office).

Warnock, John W. 1987. _The Politics of Hunger: The Global Food System_ (New
York: Methuen).

World Bank. 1986. _Poverty and Hunger: Issues and Options for Food Security
in Developing Countries_. (Washington: World Bank).

AUDIO-VISUALS

PBS Nova Series: "The Politics of Food" (2 hours).

DATA BASES

Grant, James. 1991. _The State of the World's Children, 1991_. (New York:
Oxford U. Press).

United Nations. 1991. _Human Development Report, 1991_. (New York: United
Nations Development
Programme).

World Bank. 1991. _World Development Report, 1991_. (Washington: World Bank).

World Resources Institute. 1991. _World Resources, 1990-1991_. (Washington:
WRI).

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
International Food Policy Research Institute
United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization
UNICEF
UNDP
OXFAM

US-BASED ORGANIZATIONS
Hunger Project
Institute for Food and Development Policy
InterAction
InterFaith Hunger Appeal
World Game, Inc.
World Hunger Program
World Policy Institute
World Watch Institute

-------------------
Excerpted from Richard J. Estes (1992) _Internationalizing Social Work Education: A Guide to
Resources For a New Century_ (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work).

Permission is granted to disseminate this document so long as proper credit has been given to the