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Hunger in South Africa and Solutions

Hunger in South Africa
Food insecurity, as Health Affairs defines it, is “a condition in which households lack access to adequate food because of limited money or other resources.” Hunger, put more simply, is a feeling of “weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat.” Of the approximately 6.5 million people in South Africa, a staggering 11% suffer from hunger. Here is everything you need to know about hunger in South Africa.

Root Causes

Major causes of hunger and food insecurity in South Africa relate to several factors including conflict and instability, the changing climate, poverty and an increasing population. These sources are significant in understanding everything you need to know about hunger in South Africa.

According to World Hunger, the prominence of violence leads to limited employment opportunities, a downfall in imported and exported goods and the destruction of fertile land that would be otherwise used for crop growth. Food war, as another example, has the definition of “the deliberate use of hunger as a weapon or hunger suffered as a consequence of armed conflict.” This prevents citizens from having access to the food they need to thrive when they live in an unstable or conflict-ridden area.

Lack of Good Food

Impoverished areas prevent their inhabitants from living a nourished, healthy lifestyle when they are unable to access sufficient food. The cyclical nature of such poverty impacts generations to come. Children are often born undernourished, therefore inhibiting potential productivity at school and work.

Poverty generally impacts rural South African areas more than urban areas, and this is due to arid lands making it difficult to grow usable crops and a lack of goods that the South African government imported. The need to find a way to deliver food to those in remote, rural areas remains prevalent.

The climate crisis has had and continues to have a significant impact on hunger. Deforestation destroys fertile land, floods destroy homes and towns. Widespread drought kills crops and leaves families starving and forced to drink unclean water. Diseases run rampant across the country. For example, global warming has caused a significant increase in malaria cases, as well as other major diseases such as cholera and the avian flu.

From 2019 to 2020, the population of South Africa changed from roughly 58 million people to 59 million people. This large increase in population size, in turn, decreases the income per capita and can cause families to struggle to feed their children. With more children being born per family, the income needed to support these children increases as well. However, the salary of the breadwinners in the family remains the same. This can cause families to become impoverished.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Hunger in South Africa

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated hunger in South Africa. According to Ipsos, most South Africans have seen an overwhelmingly negative effect on their income during the pandemic. Large numbers of them are suffering from long-term hunger and many have lost their jobs.

Hunger ratios in South Africa are on an upward trajectory after the start of COVID-19. Over 23% of South African households experienced hunger last summer, and 70% of households were reliant on government grants. Additionally, unemployment rates are at a record high of 32.8%, up 2% since the start of the pandemic.

Solutions and Next Steps

COVID-19 remains a threat throughout the world and impacts impoverished areas in particular. NGOs fear that a drop in essential funding and support may inhibit their ability to help those most in need. NGO Pulse provides a comprehensive list of organizations focusing on the impact of COVID-19. This is on South African families for businesses or individuals to support in order for them to continue to work. Several of these NGOs are stepping up during the pandemic to address the increase of widespread hunger in South Africa.

Founded in 1945, the ACFS Community Education and Feeding Scheme has centers scattered across South Africa which feed children who are undernourished. These centers also offer programs such as computer skills to family members and provide support for the economically unstable. Its mission is to ensure South African children receive food and proper care through the help of fellow South Africans.

By July 2020, ACFS had provided food to 24,000 households in South Africa. This is an increase of roughly 10,000 since the start of the pandemic. The pandemic proved to be a unique challenge. However, ACFS launched three new teenage girl programs and opened a second toy library.

Feed South Africa

Feed SA aims to feed both the stomachs and the minds of impoverished South Africans, and the NGO has put together an action plan specifically for those who experienced the most impact from COVID-19 in South Africa. This plan calls upon the national and international community for donations. This funds programs such as Back a Pupil, which became launched during the height of the pandemic. This program distributes educational packs full of school supplies such as worksheets and writing utensils. The organization provides not only monthly food deliveries but also other goods families may need, such as First Aid kits.

Progress is happening. Both national and international NGOs fight to end and educate the public on hunger in South Africa. Food insecurity remains prevalent in many areas and demands continued attention.

– Grace Manning
Photo: Flickr

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5 Businesses that Support Ending World Hunger

Five Businesses that Support Ending World Hunger
Many people in developed countries take things for granted, whether a clear blue sky or a cheeseburger from McDonald’s. However, across the world, approximately 805 million people around the world are undernourished, consuming well under the recommended number of calories per day. Those suffering from poverty often do not have the money to purchase food or land on which to produce it, resulting in global suffering. Some businesses are aware of this issue and want to help make a change, using their influence to make an impact on world hunger.

5 Businesses that Support Ending World Hunger

  1. Walmart: Walmart’s philanthropy revolves around addressing hunger, health and how to make sustainable food a reality. In 2018, the Walmart Foundation announced a five-year commitment plan to give $25 million in grants to smallholder farmers in India. These funds will give farmers access to better agriculture technology, more sustainable techniques and skill-building.
  2. Panera Bread: Panera Bread has previously partnered with the World Central Kitchen to provide meals to those suffering from food scarcity. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Panera Bread has partnered with Chef José to continued their philanthropy by providing meals nationwide – beginning with cities in the most critical situations. Panera Bread is not only donating but also offering their kitchens and resources, and partnering with vendors and supply chains to donate excess food.
  3. General Mills: General Mills is one of the founding members of the Global FoodBanking Network, an international nonprofit organization that aims to create a hunger-free world. General Mills and Global FoodBanking Network understand the importance of food waste and are working with food banks to reduce hunger and malnutrition. Through this partnership, General Mills has been able to provide 201 million meals to those in need since 2010.
  4. Kraft Heinz Company: The Kraft Heinz Company Micronutrient Campaign was created to provide access to nutritional supplements and ensure the healthy development of those in other countries. This campaign distributes micronutrient powders rich in vitamins, minerals and supplemental iron to mix into children’s food. The Kraft Heinz Company has effectively treated and prevented iron deficiency, anemia, and other vitamin deficiencies through these efforts.
  5. Western Digital: Through partnerships with Rise Against Hunger and Latet, Western Digital, a computer and data storage company, packaged over six million meals for those in need in 2019. Western Digital is passionate about the health of the body and mind and believes that to achieve a healthy lifestyle, nutritious meals are a necessity. By providing these packaged meals, Western Digital hopes to improve student health, promote education and stimulate economic growth.

World hunger is a problem that will not be solved overnight. Companies such as those listed above understand the importance of aiding those who struggle to obtain proper sustenance every day. These five businesses that support ending world hunger have partnered with incredible organizations devoted to providing children and their families with nutritional food and vitamins needed for healthy growth. Through their efforts, they are making a large impact on world hunger.

– Ciara Pagels
Photo: Flickr

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How to End Hunger

Saharan African
Between 2015 and 2016, world hunger rose by 20 million people, according to most recent estimates released in a 2016 U.N. report. This issue affects 815 million people worldwide. The single biggest cause of hunger is poverty, but there are also other heavily contributed factors. Since the turn of the century, food production has outpaced population growth, and the world now produces enough food to feed 1.5x the global population. The question of how to end hunger stretches beyond simply farming more effectively. To end hunger, we have to address the issue as more than a supply-demand deficiency.

Poverty

Only 11 percent of world hunger comes from developed countries; by far, the regions most afflicted by hunger are middle- and lower-income. In 2016, 22.7 percent of Sub-Saharan Africans were reported as malnourished. For those living on less than $2 per day, food can be too expensive to maintain a healthy diet. Economic hardship is further expounded by a lack of education and inadequate access to basic needs such as food, potable water and shelter. In this context, poverty and hunger have a cyclical nature. To reduce poverty, you have to reduce hunger and to reduce hunger, you have to reduce poverty. Take a look here to see how the Borgen Project plans to end poverty.

Armed Conflicts and Political Instability

Poverty is not the only factor in global hunger. Armed conflicts and political instability play a major role in keeping food out of hungry mouths. In recent years, conflicts have been rising, which may correspond to the increase of worldwide malnourished people.

War has also increasingly occurred in regions already vulnerable to disease and malnourishment, such as sub-Saharan and Eastern Africa. For example, South Sudan has been the site of a civil war since 2013. In 2017, the fighting played a major role in South Sudan undergoing the first declared famine in six years. Six million people (one in three residents of South Sudan) have been declared severely food insecure.

Violence takes away human capital, removing productive people from countries that need this capital the most. War destroys infrastructure, disrupts children’s schooling and creates more refugees. Peace is no easy task, but it’s a necessary one to achieve food security for all.

Steps Toward Ending World Hunger

The search for how to end hunger continues, despite the recent setbacks. Humanitarian organizations, such as Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) have worked hard to fight hunger and alleviate the problems associated with it. CARE works in 94 countries and impacts 80 million people worldwide.

Other organizations have developed more atypical answers of how to end hunger. Freedom From Hunger, a charitable organization dedicated to ending world hunger through economic empowerment, has instituted savings and micro-financing programs to people at risk of food insecurity. The goal of these programs is to help people plan for the future and pull themselves out of poverty through education, financial services and monetary savings.

The road to ending hunger will be long and hard. There will be more setbacks, but at the end of the day, it’s up to the world to pave a better future.

– Peter Buffo
Photo: Flickr

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Key Organizations Fighting World Hunger

World Hunger
Over 815 million people suffer from hunger worldwide. The majority of these millions plagued by hunger come from lower income countries. Hunger and poverty are inextricably linked together in a cycle, poverty causing hunger through a lack of sufficient means, and hunger causing poverty due to high food prices and malnourishment, which affects performance in schools and in the workplace. Thus, in order to address hunger at any level, poverty must also be considered. There are a number of key organizations fighting world hunger as well as looking into its underlying factors.

Underlying Factors in World Hunger

In addition to stemming from poverty, world hunger can be the result of conflicts, climate change and economic and political issues that are seemingly unrelated. Long-term conflicts can interfere with food and agriculture production and also make humanitarian assistance very difficult. A poor economy can drive up prices, making food insecurity and hunger more prevalent. Natural disasters can decimate countries, leading to severe, temporary hunger; for example, El Nino is said to have been responsible for hunger in 20 million cases. Global climate change has also affected crop production as flooding or drought can destroy crops, which can lead to food insecurity.

In 2016, it was estimated that 10.7 percent of the world’s population faced chronic undernourishment.  This can lead to long-lasting physical and mental health impairments. Hungry people are 2.9 times more likely to have health issues. Over 3 million children die per year as a result of a hunger-induced illness such as stunting, vitamin deficiencies, and growth restriction (for babies and fetuses). There are also many diseases that can lead to death in which hunger is an underlying condition, and malnutrition magnifies the effects of all diseases including measles and malaria. Hunger can also exacerbate mental health issues; children who are hungry are four times more likely to need professional counseling.

Key Organizations Fighting World Hunger

In order to fight world hunger, there must be more education that inspires understanding and leads to action. A multitude of organizations exists to assist those experiencing food insecurity. The most influential organizations are those that address root issues rather than just addressing band-aid issues.

  1. Bread for the World addresses world hunger by lobbying world leaders to attack underlying causes, preaching that “we need to do more than just giving people a meal a day.”
  2. Results is another group that also uses education and lobbying as a tool to end world hunger through highly-trained advocacy volunteers.
  3. The Food Research and Action Center is a hub for an anti-hunger network of individuals and agencies seeking to improve public policies surrounding hunger and malnutrition in the U.S.
  4. Action Against Hunger eliminates hunger through detection and prevention measures as well as provides aid in treating malnutrition.
  5. The Hunger Project is committed to sustainable ways to end world hunger, empowering people to be self-reliant in the long run.
  6. Heifer International donates livestock to create long-term agricultural solutions and provide training in farming techniques.

These are but a few of the innovative organizations dedicated to helping the world’s hungry. The U.S., for example, assists in hunger reduction by providing emergency food aid, supporting long-term developmental agriculture programs and assisting with organizations in trying to achieve global food security.

In order to help reduce world hunger, it is important to support research and policy and give to dynamic organizations. When looking at where to donate, keep in mind creative initiatives, the desire to address the root causes of hunger and programs that promote self-sufficiency and sustainability in the long term.

– Jessie Serody
Photo: Flickr

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Rise Against Hunger: An Organization Striving to Create an Impact

Rise Against Hunger: An Organization Striving to Create a Tangible Impact

With an alarming 805 million people in the world impacted by hunger, organizations such as Rise Against Hunger are striving to do their part in alleviating malnourished and hungry nations. Because poverty is largely caused by conflict and lack of resources, it is said to be the principal cause of hunger. Rise Against Hunger ignites the passion and drive to address this reality by doing its part in feeding millions and ending global hunger.

What Does Rise Against Hunger Do?

Established in 1998, Rise Against Hunger is an international hunger relief organization with aspirations to end hunger by 2030. Its daily task is to distribute food and aid to the world’s most vulnerable. The organization’s 2017 impact report shows that well over 1.4 million lives were impacted by this single organization in 36 different countries, sending out 76 million meals. A crucial factor in its success can be accredited to its four pillars toward ending world hunger:

  1. Grow movement
  2. Empower communities
  3. Nourish lives
  4. Emergency relief

An effective tool it uses for growing the movement is the volunteering events it hosts throughout different universities and other organizations. This allows people to come together as a community to take action with Rise Against Hunger by packaging meals for distribution to the world’s hungry.

The organization empowers communities by educating and advocating about topics such as sustainable agriculture and hosting clean water projects. Rise Against Hunger also nourishes lives by giving warm, sustainable meals to those who are in dire need by responding to disasters efficiently, therefore providing effective emergency relief with these prepackaged meals.

Who Does the Organization Help?

Tom Barbitta, the Rise Against Hunger Chief Marketing Director, emphasizes the importance of how education plays a vital role in global poverty and how this, as a result, affects the hunger scale of a nation. “A country has never been able to lift itself out of poverty without first hitting a 40 percent literacy rate,” he told The Borgen Project. “Because of this, around 40 percent of the meals distributed from Rise Against Hunger end up in school feeding programs.”

Children who are living in severe poverty have to spend their time begging for food, rather than receiving an education that will benefit them in the future. The organization keeps this in the forefront of its work and Baritta comments that “we hope to empower young minds to take control of their own community.”

Aspirations Become Reality

A 12-year-old child from Zambia, Aswali, who once did not have adequate access to food, now receives meals each day from Rise Against Hunger distributed by Family Legacy Missions. He is also able to provide food for his family while attending school, decreasing the global poverty rate.

Meals from Rise Against Hunger are also distributed to vocational training facilities. In places such as West Africa, when the people in these facilities have access to meals, they are able to focus on their skills which will, in turn, give them an income that allows them to allocate more food for their families and live life on their own terms.

Rise Against Hunger is an organization that makes valuable efforts toward putting an end to the widespread global hunger. Its impact remains prevalent, with thousands of volunteers joining each year creating an effective tool for growing the movement. Rise Against Hunger understands the importance of every individual being able to make a viable difference toward diminishing poverty.

– Angelina Gillispie

Photo: Flickr

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Fighting World Hunger Through the Hunger Project

Fighting World Hunger Through the Hunger Project

Hunger affects more than 700 million people in the world. About one in nine people on this planet do not have the proper amount of food to sustain a healthy lifestyle. The majority of people suffering from starvation live in developing countries in Africa and parts of Asia.

Hunger also has a significant adverse impact on children. Poor nutrition causes about 45 percent of deaths in children under five. This amounts to approximately 3.1 million children each year. Sixty-six million young children attend school hungry, and 22 million of those children are from Africa. In developing countries, one out of three children are stunted, and at least 100 million of these children are underweight.

Malnutrition and world hunger are significant factors in poverty, but organizations such as the Hunger Project work to combat these factors.

 

What is the Hunger Project?

The Hunger Project was established in 1977, and its primary goal is to help everyone live a fulfilling and healthy life by ending world hunger.

The organization’s focus is world hunger, and it has pinpointed other variables that contribute to achieving its ultimate goal. Simultaneously, it works to enhance human dignity, gender equality, empowerment, interconnectedness, sustainability, social transformation and transformative leadership.

The Hunger Project faces each challenge with three approaches. Firstly, it works to empower women, because they are essential to decreasing world hunger. It then focuses on making dependent communities self-reliant through mobilization. Finally, it works to improve local governments through partnerships.

 

The Hunger Project Improving Ghana and Burkina Faso

Recently, the Hunger Project partnered with the Economic Community of West African States to work on projects in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Together, they will finance these projects to improve leadership in communities. With better guidance, the organizations hope that it will lead to people being able to obtain their basic daily needs.

Another goal of these projects is to teach communities how to create boreholes during harvest. Boreholes are holes that are drilled into a surface to extract vital material. Boreholes are useful for drilling for water, as well as oil and mineral extraction.

Finally, as part of the series of projects, the organizations will work to equip Ghana and Burkina Faso with more modern tools and skills.

 

The Hunger Project’s Maternal Care

Ghana’s maternal healthcare system is in dire need of improvement. As of 2010, 164 out of 100,000 births resulted in death. The Hunger Project is working to make a difference by partnering with the Ghana Health Service to teach women how to become midwives.

Ghana is suffering from a shortage of midwives, which can lead to complications during childbirth, especially when a trained attendant is not present. The organization strives to place trained midwives across 15 districts in Ghana. These midwives will offer 24-hour maternal care, especially in the regions that have a shortage.

Hunger is crippling a significant number of people in the world, but with organizations such as the Hunger Project working to address the causes, improvements are sure to come shortly.

– Cassidy Dyce

Photo: Flickr

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The Top 10 Most Thought-Provoking Quotes About Hunger

top 10 hunger quotes

Globally, around 795 million people lack access to adequate food resources. This equates to approximately one in nine hungry humans who do not have enough to eat. As these quotes about hunger will illustrate, hunger and malnutrition are self-perpetuating issues that affect a person’s mental ability, health, work and productivity. They constitute the world’s greatest public health risk, more pressing than AIDs, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

The good news is that hunger is preventable; the earth produces more than enough food to provide for all of its citizens. The problem lies in food access and apathy from developed nations. Solving world hunger involves investing in smallholder family farmers, healthcare, financial services and increasing women’s access to resources. The following are 10 of the greatest, most thought-provoking quotes about hunger that bring various perspectives to this complex issue.

  1. “If we can conquer space, we can conquer childhood hunger.” –Buzz Aldrin
  2. “It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to his assistance.” –Simone Weil
  3. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.” –Dwight D. Eisenhower
  4. “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” –Mahatma Gandhi
  5. “We know that a peaceful world cannot long exist, one-third rich and two-thirds hungry.” –Jimmy Carter
  6. “The war against hunger is truly mankind’s war of liberation.” –John F. Kennedy
  7. “Hunger is not a problem. It is an obscenity. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” –Anne Frank
  8. “If you cannot feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” –Mother Teresa
  9. “It is important for people to realize that we can make progress against world hunger, that world hunger is not hopeless. The worst enemy is apathy.” –Reverend David Beckmann
  10. “You pray for the hungry. Then you feed them. This is how prayer works.” –Pope Francis

For anyone moved by these quotes about hunger, there are many ways for individuals to get involved. Advocacy is essential, and contacting representatives is an easy and effective means of citizen involvement. Supporting hunger initiatives and awareness over social media is another simple option. On a local level, communities can provide meals for the hungry among them.

In the last 26 years, the number of hungry people worldwide has fallen by 216 million. With enough public determination, this amount will continue to drop until no one in the world goes to bed hungry.

– Anna Parker

Photo: Flickr

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Protein Created Out of Electricity to End World Hunger

End World HungerResearchers in Finland have introduced their hopeful and ongoing work to improve life by creating food out of electricity — a development that could end world hunger. Researchers created a protein out of an electric shock and a few ingredients. The results of this experiment may be successful in helping to feed a large amount of people in regions where food sources are threatened by climate change or other conflicts. It could also perhaps introduce a food technology that could change the food and agricultural industry.

The protein was created as a Food from Electricity Project with the Lappeenranta University of Technology and the Technical Research Centre of Finland. The protein is a single-cell protein large enough for a dinner meal. The protein includes electricity, water, carbon dioxide and microbes. The ingredients go through a system powered by renewable energy and then researchers enhance an electric shock into the ingredients, creating a result of 50 percent protein, 25 percent carbohydrates and 25 percent fat and nucleic acid. This concept has introduced a new, cheaper way to address and end world hunger.

About 800 million people suffer from malnourishment and about 20 million people are undergoing famine in their countries. So far, the concept has allowed the creation of one gram of protein in about two weeks with the nutrition of basic food. Researchers predict that there will be a full effect of the electric protein in about a decade, which allows for a wider use of the protein. For now, researchers are introducing this hopeful initiative, and will continue developing the concept.

Electric food has life-changing potential. This process could not only provide a protein to resolve the hunger crisis, but it could also develop nutritious food that furthers solving and ending world hunger.

– Brandi Gomez

Photo: Flickr

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Methods To Cure World Hunger

Cure World HungerAn estimated 3.1 million children die from hunger each year. In 2011, malnutrition caused almost half of all deaths in children under the age of five. However, there are many great organizations around the globe working to end hunger, but there is still work that needs to be done. Here are three foundational methods to cure world hunger:

Educate People

Education efforts can boost economic growth in developing nations. It can also help provide income to the impoverished and lift them out of hunger. Special attention to areas lacking access to basic education can lead to the most dramatic improvements.  In fact, just one extra year of schooling can lead to a 10 percent pay increase.

Focus on Children

In addition to educating the current working generation, teaching children how to better take care of themselves and the environment is one of the most important methods to cure world hunger. The future of a nation lies in the hands of today’s children. Thus, with a proper education, doors will open. An education provides individuals with the methods to investigate and solve problems, which fuels the growth of society as a whole and promotes sustainable communities. Data provided by the Global Education Conference shows that although governments in places like Africa are working towards improving educational systems, a lot of work still remains. Now, they are focusing on improving the cognitive skill sets that are taught in these schools.

Empower Women

Globally, 43 percent of agricultural workers are women. In third-world countries, this percentage increases to over 50 percent. However, these women experience more poverty and less education than their male counterparts. Female farmers have fewer resources, and they produce about 20 percent less product. If given the same opportunities as men, this gap would diminish, which would provide greater income to these women and more food for their communities. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations estimates that if women were given the same resources as men, the extra food they would be able to produce would decrease hunger by 12-17 percent. That’s 150 million additional people receiving food.

Ending world hunger will take more than sending shipments of food and vaccinations to African villages a few times a year. These families need permanent solutions to their problems, instead of temporary fixes. These methods to cure world hunger work because they are focused on implementing permanent change within struggling communities, the effects of which will be felt for generations to come.

– Helen Barker

Photo: Flickr

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20 Facts about Hunger

20 facts about hunger
Hunger is an issue affecting all nations. Nearly 43 million Americans faced food insecurity in 2015, and feeding the American homeless, poverty-plagued families and undernourished children are matters the U.S. government takes seriously. The following 20 facts about hunger shine a specific light on the plight of the most malnourished nations. From these 20 facts about hunger, it is clear that people all over the world are afflicted by the issue of hunger.

20 Facts about Hunger

  1. Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. In 2012, the World Bank estimated that there were 896 million people in developing countries living at or below $1.90 a day.
  2. The world produces enough food to feed everyone. The world produced 2,790 kilocalories per person per day between 2006 and 2008.
  3. Malnutrition can lead to growth failure. Principal types of growth failure are ‘stunting’ and ‘wasting.’ Stunting is a slow process caused by a lack of nutrients and wasting is caused by insufficient protein.
  4. Around 794 million people were undernourished between 2014 and 2016 — 10.9 percent of the global population.
  5. In Angola, an African country with the highest under-five mortality rate in the world, more than 15 percent of the population is underweight and nearly 30 percent suffer from stunting.
  6. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 161 million children worldwide are affected by stunting. Suffering from nutrient-poor diets or ongoing infections, stunted children may have normal body proportions but look younger than they actually are.
  7. Iodine deficiencies during pregnancy can lead to severe mental retardation or stillbirth. Though iodized salt is common in the developed world, more than 50 countries report a serious iodine deficiency problem.
  8. With more than 30 percent of people underweight, Pakistan ranked last on the 2012 Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index for its public spending on agriculture as a share of total public spending.
  9. More than 232 million people living in Africa were undernourished between 2014 and 2016 — 20 percent of the African population.
  10. In 2013, Myanmar ranked last on the Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index for access to agricultural research and extension services.
  11. Undernourished children are more likely to underperform in school and on tests of intelligence and reading.
  12. Malnutrition during pregnancy increases the risk of mental illness. Studies investigating famines reported increases in the rate of schizophrenia during periods of prolonged prenatal exposure to hunger, or “nutritional inadequacy.”
  13. The World Food Programme calculated that it would cost $3.2 billion annually to feed the 66 million hungry school-age kids around the world.
  14. There are many scientific theories of why humans get hungry. Some of them are the stomach contraction theory, the glucose theory, the insulin theory, the fatty acid theory, and the heat-production theory.
  15. Almost 780 million people living in developing regions were undernourished between 2014 and 2016 –12.9 percent of the developing nations population.
  16. Over the course of two decades, the amount of undernourished Latin Americans has shrunk by more than 30 million.
  17. The availability of water is crucial to farming and food production. Climate change may affect crops and hundreds of millions of “water-stressed” people in the coming decade.
  18. The World Food Programme calculated that it costs $0.25 daily to give a child the vitamins and nutrients necessary for healthy growth.
  19. Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries defines hunger as “the state of not having enough food to eat, especially when this causes illness or death.”
  20. In 2011, undernutrition was estimated to be the cause of more than three million child deaths — 45 percent of all child deaths.

These 20 facts about hunger only highlight the issue on a universal level, but they can act as a guide unveiling the true lives of those who live in poverty stricken conditions on a daily basis. Knowledge can prevent many in the position to help alleviate the problem to act. With combined knowledge and aid, terminating world hunger remains hopeful.

– Shaun Savarese

Photo: Flickr