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How to Help the Hungry

Help the Hungry
Helping those who suffer from malnutrition has become a lot easier in the 2010s, with advancements in modern technology.

Helping the hungry and needy can be as simple as clicking a button in the modern age. Funds and donations are one of the most important parts of helping the hungry worldwide along with volunteers and advocacy.

Using donations and monetary gifts, nonprofits are able to mobilize volunteers, some who work on the ground in impoverished areas and some who try to get their cause more well-known through advocacy.

Through the use of technology, including the Internet and social media, doing this has become much simpler. How to help the hungry and put an end to global poverty can be as simple as sending emails or tweets to representatives in government or radio stations.

Posting fliers is easier, spreading the word is easier, delivering food to hungry families is easier and even providing clean water is easier.

Posting fliers to raise awareness on social media can grab someone’s attention and if not the person for whom it was meant, then someone who is friends with them and can see it on their news feed.

Delivering food is made easier, especially in high risk areas through air drops and drones. Now cleaner water is within reach as well with technology that uses plasma to purify water as it is being brought up from a well.

There are also billboards and water tanks that collect water from the rain and humidity and purify it so people can have clean water to drink.

There are so many more ways to help the hungry than there has been in the past right now. But there are still hungry people in the world, struggling to get by on $1 or less per day. Hunger has increased in Africa by 153 percent in the last five years.

However, hunger is down in impoverished South American countries as well as in impoverished Asian nations because these nations see most of the technological advancements and learn to put them to good use.

It is rare for South African nations to see the same sort of technology and receive the same type of training other nations do in order to provide technologically advanced aid.

Much of the technology that is making it onto the market comes from South American inventors and nonprofits to help the impoverished, but as a nation stricken with poverty find it increasingly difficult to get their patents and designs to other nations in desperate need.

So, how do you help the hungry? Monetary gifts and food donations take little to no time at all; in addition, they help greatly with spreading knowledge and technological advancements in order to make fighting hunger, providing clean water and putting an end to global poverty much easier for generations to come.

– Cara Morgan

Sources: Feeding America, US News, WFP 1, WFP 2, World Hunger
Photo: Action Against Hunger

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South Sudan Named Most Fragile Nation

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In 2011, South Sudan split from Sudan. Consequently, Vice President Riek Machar was accused by President Salva Kiir of planning a coup and fighting began. Residents were forced to leave their homes as the fighting between the two factions worsened.

As a result of the mass killings and violence coupled with the unstable leadership, the Fund For Peace named South Sudan the most fragile nation in the world (bumping Somalia down the list after it held the top position for six years.)

The U.N. is appealing for around $1 billion in emergency humanitarian aid for South Sudan and has expressed concern that the horrendous fighting will worsen the famine and leave little hope of progress for the young generation of children.

The U.N.’s report asserts that without the aid, 50,000 children could die from malnutrition, food insecurity will persist, cholera will not be contained and there will be no real determined effort to combat the human rights violations that pervade the daily lives of those living in South Sudan.

According to The Guardian, the deputy special representative of the U.N. secretary general in South Sudan, Toby Lanzer, reports that “with many communities unable to farm or tend properly to their cattle, the risk of famine looms large. In some particularly hard to reach areas of the country, people are already starving.”

He continues by saying that while the more immediate goals of the emergency aid would be used to repair damage caused by the famine, the money would also be used to prevent future damage and to save lives. Ideally, it would be used to strengthen the younger generation by ensuring children are vaccinated, by providing counseling to help children deal with the aftermath of the violence, and by keeping schools open so that children can continue receiving a formal education.

Organizations such as Oxfam and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fewsnet) have expressed support for the concerns conveyed by the U.N. All three organizations are in agreement that as South Sudan reaches the six-month mark for all the devastation, communities need to take further action to remedy the terrible, persisting situation in South Sudan.

– Jordyn Horowitz

Sources: CNN World, UNICEF, The Fund for Peace, The Guardian

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International Day for Victims of Torture

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This week marked the anniversary of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

According to the United Nations, torture as a practice seeks “to annihilate the victim’s personality and denies the inherent dignity of the human being.”

The U.N. General Assembly adopted resolution 52/149 in December 1997, a resolution that proclaimed June 26 as the U.N. International Day in Support of Torture Victims. Believing torture to be “one of the vilest acts perpetrated by human beings on their fellow human beings,” the resolution maintains the intention to completely eradicate all torture measures and practices.

Torture practices used today include the controversial waterboarding, sleep deprivation, force feeding, electric shock and cold cell, among others. Rape, beatings and public sexual humiliation are also considered to be forms of torture as they are measures used to inflict pain upon other individuals. Countries, including the United States, continue to use enhanced interrogation techniques to obtain information from suspected criminals or terrorists. Many believe these techniques qualify as acts of torture.

“As we honor the victims on this International day, let us pledge to strengthen our efforts to eradicate this heinous practice,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

The U.N. Fund for Victims of Torture has assisted torture victims around the world. It provides direct assistance to torture victims — assistance that includes access to psychological and physical rehabilitation centers as well legal services.

While many countries do not make use of torture practices, 41 countries have not ratified the Convention Against Torture and thus allow and continue to use practices deemed to be inhuman by the U.N. In fact, Amnesty International’s 2013 Report stated that 112 of 159 countries practiced torture methods in 2012.

“Torture is an unequivocal crime,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said. “Neither national security nor the fight against terrorism, the threat of war, or any public emergency can justify its use,” Pillay said. “All States are obliged to investigate and prosecute allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and they must ensure by every means that such practices are prevented.”

– Ethan Safran

Sources: allAfrica, United Nations, International Business Times, Human Rights Web, United Nations Human Rights, Dignity – Danish Institute Against Torture
Photo: Time and Date

Maternal and Child Health in Ethiopia

Just two years ago, in 2012, nearly 5 million children worldwide died before they reached their first birthday. Too many of those children were lost simply because they were born into nations without the necessary health infrastructure to attend to their basic medical needs. Lacking proper medical supplies, accessible health centers and proper prevention methods, developing nations are losing more mothers children than they must due to the fact that maternal and child health are intimately related.

One of these countries is Ethiopia, which in 2009 was rated one of the riskiest countries for childbirth, as one in 27 women died delivering their children. Though today that figure is still among the highest in the world – one in 67 women dies during childbirth in Ethiopia in 2014 – that the number has declined is representative of ongoing efforts both on the part of Ethiopia and on the part of international aid organizations to improve maternal and child health.

In a nation where 80 percent of mothers give birth at home without the help of a trained midwife or other health care worker, preventable death occurs frequently. Recognizing this situation, public health outreach in Ethiopia aimed at mothers and children has focused on giving them access to health centers that may be far away from rural areas where much of the population lives. Though there is still much to be done, this outreach has so far been incredibly successful, with Ethiopia accomplishing Millennium Development Goal #4, to reduce child death before age 5 by two-thirds by 2015, well ahead of schedule.

That achievement is sure to be followed by even more improvement in maternal and child health in Ethiopia, as the Ethiopian government has committed to training and stationing Health Extension Workers at critical places throughout rural Ethiopia as part of its Health Extension Plan. If this policy is successful, every Ethiopian will have access to a regional health center staffed by two knowledgeable Health Extension Workers, a larger nearby health center and a full-fledged hospital.

The government has realized not only the importance of accessible health care for its people, but also culturally-appropriate health care practices. Because Ethiopia is a large and diverse nation, attending to the many cultural preferences of its people is key to delivering the highest quality of care. ONE reported a case in which Ethiopian women were choosing to deliver at home rather than at a local health center because the birthing position at the health center made the women feel uneasy. After rectifying the birthing position, more women felt comfortable coming to the health center for pre- and post-natal care. Installing health centers is an admirable first step, but it will also be crucial to train health care workers to respect the culture of the local community.

Ethiopia is by no means a wealthy country – it is ranked among the poorest in the world – but despite widespread impoverishment, it has committed to taking care of its mothers and children and in the past several years has begun making strides toward that goal. Targeted international aid will only speed up the process of keeping every mother and child alive in Ethiopia.

— Elise L. Riley

Sources: ONE, Strong Women Strong World, WHO
Photo: IXMHD

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Farming in Liberia and President Johnson-Sirleaf

Liberia’s war against hunger has become stagnant. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, however, has a new and innovative battle tactic: one that requires getting your hands dirty.

Addressing the nation early last month, Johnson-Sirleaf, a farmer herself, encouraged her people to return to the soil. She called for collective action, urging all citizens to be proactive in the fight against hunger. She advocated for farm funding and support, but mostly for citizens to get outside and transform uninhabited lands within their communities into small gardens and farms. Farming in Liberia could help fight the epidemic of hunger the country has faced.

Liberia has endured a long and grisly history marked by colonialism and civil war. In 2005, after years of military rule and prolonged conflict, the country hosted its first democratic elections, installing Johnson-Sirleaf as the first elected female head of state in Africa. The country, however, has remained fraught by years of political and economic instability. According to WFP, it is classified as both a least-developed nation and a low-income food-deficit country. Among other issues, food poverty and food insecurity are particularly high. In 2012, the government-led Comprehensive Food Security and Nutrition Survey found that every fifth household in Liberia is food insecure.

Amid turmoil and despair, Johnson-Sirleaf has remained committed to her nation. She has recently launched the System of Rice Intensification, a new method of rice planting that will increase rice production and further help to provide food to local people. Developed in Madagascar by the French Jesuit Henri de Laulanie, SRI is an innovation that changes the conventional practices of rice growing. It consists of producing rice with less seeds, water and fertilizers in a soil rich in organic matter and well ventilated. In practice, this method will produce more rice with less material, therefore feeding more people at a lower cost.

Johnson-Sirleaf also has support from The Community of Hope Agricultural Project (CHAP.) Established in 2008, CHAP is a faith-based entity that seeks to reduce hunger and provide jobs throughout Liberia by training local farmers, youth and women, and providing them with basic farm tools and equipment to increase their productivity. With tools and ground support, Johnson-Sirleaf’s vision will soon be materialized.

A representative of the Farmer’s Union Network claims that agriculture is the most fundamental component of democracy. Without an adequate and sizable food supply, a country cannot sustain its population and must surrender a piece of its independence to foreign influences. By encouraging sustainability through individual efforts and government funding, Liberia is on its way to self-sufficiency and a stable republic.

— Samantha Scheetz

Sources: WAAPP Liberia, Africa, World Food Programme, allAfrica
Photo: Telegraph

3 Results of Chinese Investment in Africa

Earlier this month, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang attended the Annual World Economic Forum on Africa; on the same trip, he visited Nigeria, Kenya, Angola and Ethiopia. Kegiang’s trip was yet another illustration of China’s deepening economic integration and development throughout Africa.

In recent years, Chinese investment in Africa has increased dramatically. China has invested large amounts of credit and aid to Africa out of economic interest in the nation, primarily exploitation of the continent’s many natural resources as well as energy development, among others.

In 2012, China donated $200 million to construct the sleek new African Union headquarters building in Ethiopia, creating a very literal illustration of favorable Chinese-African relations. As of this month, the Chinese investment in Africa has reached $30 billion in the continent in credit, as well as $5 billion in development funding assistance. Additionally, trade between the two entities has reached a whopping $150 billion.

This intimate economic integration and political entwinement alarms many across the globe, as China’s development in Africa has been (and will likely continue to be be) accompanied by concerns regarding labor ethics and environmental consequences. Others have expressed worries about terrorism and its potential spread as African leaders turn away from American diplomacy and instead focus on Chinese economic integration. Three primary consequences of this relationship are of concern:

 

1. Environmental Concerns

China has a notoriously unfavorable reputation when it comes to unethical labor standards and a disregard for environmental pollution and emissions. With exponential growth and thousands of laborers in newly developed African factories, how will the latter concerns be addressed, if at all? Will they pay closer attention to human rights concerns in foreign turf?

 

2. Potential spread of terrorist growth

U.S. diplomacy with Africa has included much counter-terrorism rhetoric and initiative. Secretary of State John Kerry has performed multinational tours of the continent on several occasions, explicitly asserting a counter-terrorist agenda. If African leaders embrace Chinese diplomacy and turn a blind eye toward U.S. efforts, experts predict that such efforts will result in more leniency in counter-terrorism efforts.

 

3. Human rights regression

In an Al-Jazeera article, some consider U.S.-Africa relations to be quite critical. Writer Abdullahi Halakhe states “African leaders’ uncritical embrace of China to spite unequal relations with the West could roll back the modest progress toward democracy, good governance and improvement in human rights.” In other words, some believe that China’s policies of “noninterference” in foreign nations’ domestic affairs is more appealing to African leaders and might result in backwards progress in the human rights arena, against the efforts the U.S. has concerted in conditional policies with leaders.

— Arielle Swett

Sources: Aljazeera America, Reuters
Photo: The Chine Africa Project

Hunger in Tanzania

It is difficult to believe that large quantities of people could go hungry in a country that relies heavily on agriculture to sustain its economy, but that’s exactly the case in Tanzania. Not only does agriculture account for a quarter of Tanzania’s GDP, but also approximately 75 percent of Tanzanians (most of whom are women) are employed by that sector. Yet nearly half of households don’t have access to adequate amounts of food, and Tanzania’s malnutrition levels are among the highest in Africa. Something isn’t adding up.

What is the problem? It isn’t that Tanzania is exporting all of its food, leaving its own people to starve. Tanzania is actually considered “food self-sufficient,” meaning that it makes most of the food its people need to live. The problem is poverty. Classified as a low-income country and ranked in the bottom fifth of countries in terms of human development, Tanzania simply hasn’t yet developed the infrastructure necessary to get the food from the fields into the hands of those who need it most.

The future is bright, though. Tanzania’s economy has been growing for several years and has the potential for continued growth. Targeted agricultural infrastructure investments could radically reduce the number of hungry Tanzanians, as Tanzania already has excellent land and water resources, in addition to international access via a major port city (Dar es Salaam.) The climate disposes itself to a wide variety of crops, and simply improving the quality and amount of seeds available to Tanzania’s agriculture sector and building the rural roads necessary for the distribution of food could vastly increase Tanzania’s food yield.

International aid organizations like USAID are already working to make hunger in Tanzania a thing of the past. The Tanzanian government is also taking steps to eradicate poverty in its country by instituting policies and programs such as Kilimo Kwanza (which means “agriculture first”) and the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania, which aim to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty by promoting agricultural growth. Motivated to feed themselves, the Tanzanian people simply require the capital to make prosperity a reality.

— Elise L. Riley

Sources: IFPRI, UNDP, USAID, World Food Programme
Photo: WFP

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UN Crisis Response in South Sudan

A recently released report from the U.N. offers a sobering update on crisis response and relief efforts in the conflict-torn country of South Sudan. The report said that the U.N. and its various agencies have only received about $739 million of the approximately $1.8 billion that it needs in order to help rebuild after the devastation that has occurred since the conflict first broke out.

The report comes on the six-month anniversary of the outbreak that started in December of 2013, when then-Vice President Riek Machar was forced out of office by Salva Kiir, triggering racial conflict between Nuer and Dinka people, respectively.

Some of the statistics are quite alarming, considering the already catastrophic amount of destruction that has already happened. Over 1 million people are internally displaced, and at least 366,000 have fled the country, while 3.9 million people are at high risk of hunger or famine. And the prices of staple foods have been steadily increasing.

Furthermore, the entire country has also been plagued by a multitude of public health problems. On May 15, a cholera outbreak was declared in the capital city of Juba, with two other outbreaks being declared in other locations. By the end of the year, 116,000 people across the country could be affected by cholera alone. There have also been documented outbreaks of Hepatitis E, meningitis and measles, not to mention that during the current wet season, outbreaks of malaria and pneumonia are on the rise. Without the necessary aid, these statistics could become even worse, and South Sudan could slip even further into disarray.

Toby Lanzer, Deputy Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General in South Sudan, said “Men, women and children have fled from their homes and sought refuge in the bush, inside U.N. bases and in neighboring countries…With many communities unable to farm or tend properly to their cattle, the risk of famine looms large. In some particularly hard-to-reach areas of the country, people are already starving.”

But despite many of the grim statistics laid out in the report, there have been some successes. For example, 80 percent of communicable diseases have been responded to within 48 hours, 63 percent of children under the age of 5 with severe acute malnutrition have been treated and 82 percent of people that have been affected by the conflict have been provided with safe water.

Fortunately, there is hope for those living in South Sudan. In the words of Lanzer: “With the continued generosity and solidarity of donors around the world, we can help prevent more unnecessary death and despair. Every dollar counts and makes a difference to people’s lives.”

— Andre Gobbo

Sources: The Guardian, United Nations, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs,  The Borgen Project
Photo: Action Against Hunger

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Aid to Education Decreasing

Aid to education has decreased by 10 percent since 2010. There are still 57 million children and 69 million adolescents who are not enrolled in school. Countries are beginning to worry that the goals set by the Education For All Act and the Millennium Development Goals will not be met.

For the first 10 years of the 21st century, aid to education has been steadily increasing. All three divisions — basic education, secondary education and post-secondary education — have seen rises in their funding. But educational funding hit its peak in 2010; since then, total funding has decreased, specifically in the basic education category.

Basic education is the level of education where children learn the foundational skills and core knowledge necessary to advance in the world. This is a vital step in the educational process for children across the globe, but seems to be neglected the most. Basic education is currently receiving the same amount of aid as it was in 2008.

The areas feeling the cuts most are those that are furthest from reaching their educational goals. Sub-Saharan Africa holds half of the world’s children who are not in school, and 12 of the African countries have experienced cuts totaling $10 billion since 2010.

South and West Asia have experienced the most severe cuts in their education aid. They saw cuts worth over a quarter of their total aid in 2010. India and Pakistan were hit the hardest with financial cuts.

Education seems to be a cause that is getting pushed aside when it comes to where aid is being allocated. Other sectors are receiving higher amounts of humanitarian aid; in 2013, the food sector received 86 percent of its requested funds and the health sector received 57 percent of its requested funds. Meanwhile, the education sector is struggling, receiving only 40 percent of its requested funds.

The Global Partnership for Education’s Replenishment Pledging Conference in Brussels is a two-day conference, beginning on June 25, during which donors will be asked to resubmit themselves to the global education cause. The goal is to raise $3.5 billion to support education in the poorest countries.

“We owe it to the children of the world — particularly the poorest and most marginalized — that both international donors and developing country governments step up and commit more funding to education,” said Julia Gillard, board chair of the Global Partnership for Education.

— Hannah Cleveland

Sources: World Education Blog, The World Post, RTT News
Photo: Teach

Climate Change Affects Poverty

For years we have all heard that climate change threatens the sustainable future of our environment. After studying the changes and effects of the climate on the biosphere, 97 percent of climatologists agree that these climate-warming trends will only continue, especially since human activities are the most likely cause of these trends, according to NASA. Reducing these trends will not only provide a safer and healthier environment for future generations, but it will also help those living in extreme poverty.

Especially in developing countries, the poor rely heavily on their environment. According to the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization, the use of forest resources contributes to the livelihood of almost 1.6 billion people globally. Forests provide essential resources such as food, fuel, medicine and even income, showing that these billions of people and the environment in which they live share an interdependent relationship with one another.

With the effects of climate change and environmental degradation on the rise, the livelihoods and habitats of these people could soon disappear completely. It is for this reason that USAID announced the plan to give 45 million Kenyan shillings to a global climate change initiative, which will address a variety of environmental concerns, such as the loss of biodiversity, deforestation and other vulnerabilities to climate change.

With this initiative and other programs already in place, researchers are hopeful that poverty might also decrease along with the effects of climate change. Purdue University researchers announced on May 29 that global malnutrition — one of the key causes of poverty — could decrease by 84 percent by 2050. This would be a huge decrease, since the U.N. currently estimates that approximately 870 million people suffer from malnourishment globally.

However, this percentage decrease relies heavily on the improvements to be made in agricultural productivity and if climate change does not damage that productivity. Although researchers at Purdue University agree that an increase in temperatures and carbon dioxide could benefit agricultural productivity for some time by lengthening the season and improving water proficiency, they also agree that these possible benefits would only be temporary.

All this shows that climate change could have a direct impact on not only nutrition levels, but also the environments of the poor in developing countries. Since these issues are so closely connected, U.N. advisor Professor Jeffrey Sachs warned the New Environmentalism Summit that “We have to tackle climate change if we are to have any hope of tackling poverty.” Sachs also stressed the idea that climate change is not a problem for future generations, but a problem that we must address in today’s society.

Global leaders are experimenting with ways to address this issue, and many, like Sachs, hope that climate change will be a central element in the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, which will expand on the current Millennium Development Goals, to continue global progress in a variety of health and societal issues after 2015. Regardless of disagreements over how to best resolve this problem, climate trends must be addressed in some way to not only help the poor, but also the planet.

— Meghan Orner

Sources:
Sources: NASA, FAO, All Africa, Purdue University, Business Green, U.N.
Photo: The Guardian