What should President Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney talk about during tonight’s foreign policy debate? The force that can make or break a foreign policy: food.
There are 870 million people worldwide who suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Such a large-scale crisis is a threat to international stability.
Read my oped in the Tennessean newspaper
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Here is a video and some instructions on how to use the free app Charity Miles to help raise funds for the World Food Programme, Feeding America and other charities while you walk, run or bike. (courtesy Ekaterina Oshepkova of the World Food Programme)
How do I use the app Charity Miles?
1. Download the application at charitymiles.org
2. It will ask you to connect via Facebook. Note, without a Facebook account, you will not be able to use the application. Also, your GPS must be on. (most cell phones apparently already have this on)
3. When you are ready to exercise, select the charity in which you will be exercising for. You can do so by sliding the screen until you see WFP, which is the 10th charity.
4. Select, walk, run, or bike. The application will then start & track your distance.
5. When you are finished, or want to take a break, select stop.
6. If you wish to resume, select resume. If you are finished, select finish.
7. When you are finished with your exercise, the application will prompt you to accept sponsorship. Accept Sponsorship. If you do not accept sponsorship and allow a post to your Facebook wall, no money will be donated to the charity.
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FreeRice has two goals: Provide education to everyone for free. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.
Tuesday, October 16th, is World Food Day. But for 870 million hungry people across the globe this day is just another one of suffering. What can you do on World Food Day to help them?
When you sit down to eat breakfast, lunch or dinner on World Food Day imagine an “invisible guest” at your table, one of the world’s hungry. This is exactly what Americans did after World War I in a fundraiser led by Herbert Hoover and General John Pershing.
You could feed that “invisible guest” with a donation of even a few dollars to a humanitarian group like the World Food Programme, Save the Children, Church World Service or Catholic Relief Services. Or you can donate to a food bank in your area. You can fight hunger at home and abroad.
On World Food Day you can also take action with a computer, a cell phone and Facebook. You can visit the site Freerice.com and play an award-winning education game where for every correct answer 10 grains of rice are donated to the World Food Programme. You can test yourself in vocabulary, math, or even the SAT.
Need inspiration? Free Rice has a famous quotes section. The more people play, the greater action against world hunger.
If we saw someone suffering from hunger before our eyes we would take action. For many of us though, hunger may be hidden from view or taking place in a land far away so we do not always feel connected to the crisis. In many cases we may not be aware. Hunger often does not make the news headlines.
Right now, there are hungry people displaced by flooding and conflict in South Sudan, some who are hard to reach because of poor roads.
We have heard about the conflict in Syria. That war has also led to a major hunger crisis for millions of people, some displaced inside Syria and others who have fled to neighboring countries. Even if the fighting in Syria were to end today, there still would be an emergency for months to come, especially with the damage to the country’s farms.
In the Sahel region of Africa, East Africa, Afghanistan, Yemen and other countries millions of children are suffering severe malnutrition. They just need some food to stay alive and avoid the physical and mental damage caused by malnutrition. Without food societies cannot develop.
Global hunger needs to be part of the public conversation and also that amongst our leaders. How often has it even come up though during this election season? If the public is not talking about it and the leaders are not either, we won’t see powerful enough action against this global menace. You can make a difference there too by just communicating with government leaders about hunger. Get a conversation going with those who are there to represent your interests.
Hunger is the greatest threat to peace and development. It can be defeated though. But it takes a strong enough collective will and that can start with you on World Food Day.
Article first published as World Food Day: Hunger Here and Far on Blogcritics and at the Des Moines Register.
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Where there is war there is hunger. This holds true with the conflict now taking place in Syria. The UN World Food Programme, the largest food aid organization, is currently feeding 1.5 million Syrians displaced within their own country.
Hundreds of thousands of other Syrians who fled to neighboring Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan are also receiving aid. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says, “conditions in Syria continue to deteriorate as the Assad regime relentlessly wages war on its own people.”
The longer the fighting continues, hunger will only intensify as the country’s regular food supply systems continue to break down. The World Food Programme, and its partner the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) are the lifeline for saving innocent Syrians from starvation.
Laure Chadraoui, a World Food Programme (WFP) officer, was just on a mission into Syria. She shares her experience in the war-torn country following interview.
You were just in the conflict areas of Syria and met with families. Can you tell us about the impact of this conflict on them to give readers an idea of life in a war zone?
During my recent mission to Syria, I visited Damascus, one area in Rural Damascus and Homs. Talking to displaced people, I saw how shocked they were from what had befallen their country. They still could not believe that this is happening to them. After more than a year and a half, many are in shock. During a door to door distribution of WFP food assistance by Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers in Homs, I saw a woman, in her early 20s, standing at the door of her house, or new shelter is a more accurate description, holding a one year old girl.
She did not ask for anything as I approached to talk to her. When I asked her where she came from, she was in tears before she could say: Khaldiyeh. Khaldieyeh, in the old city of Homs, has endured recently heavy fighting. She had only recently given birth and had to flee with her husband and her newborn baby. Her husband was not at home, she told me, he goes looking for someone to hire him as a daily worker, most of the time to no avail. What she receives from WFP is all she has got to feed her baby. She was not very comfortable telling her story, but her tears told most of it. I imagined, then, that many of these displaced people, lost members of their families, or their homes, or their livelihoods, or maybe all at once. Their lives are shattered. This woman, found a home, in a safe area in Homs, but the sound of explosions and fighting is clear, and she, like many others know it is probably not far from what they used to call “home.”
I met other WFP beneficiaries at public shelters, each family living in a room, that is now the kitchen and the bedroom and the playground. The mattresses lined up on top of each other to give space for the family to sit together is the common image that strikes you everywhere in those shelters. Sometimes more than one family share one room. I met a family with children and a baby no more than 4 months who has taken an empty and unfinished villa as her new shelter. The villa is still under construction, has no doors or windows. That was the best they could find. It looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. Their needs are huge from food to medical care and non-food items. The mother told me, she fled with only the clothes they were wearing. They were poor where she came from but had a roof over their head; we had a decent life and we were happy, she told me. However, it was a relief to see that our food is reaching them and in many ways saving their lives.
Are children at risk of physically and mentally damaging malnutrition in Syria and are there going to be enough food supplies and access to prevent this?
It was particularly painful to see displaced children. They are not only uprooted from their familiar environment but also from their schools. WFP is working closely with UNICEF to ensure children’s nutritional needs are met. We are importing plumpy doz which is expected in the coming weeks targeting around 100,000 children under 5 years old. WFP is also providing logistic support to other agencies and we have shipped humanitarian supplies on behalf of UNICEF, among others, to different parts of the countries.
How much agricultural land has been harmed by the fighting and what impact will this have going forward?
A Joint Rapid Food Security Needs Assessment mission, conducted in June 2012, by WFP, FAO, and the Syrian Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform in Syria revealed that the agricultural sector has lost a total of US$1.8 billion this year as a result of the crisis due to losses and damages to crops, livestock and irrigation systems. The assessment has shown that strategic crops, such as wheat and barley, have been badly affected. The findings indicated that 3 million people are in need of food, crop, and livestock assistance such as seeds, food for animals, fuel and repair of irrigation pumps over the next 12 months.
How is the funding level for the Syrian relief mission? And how can people help?
WFP’s operation in Syria is short if US$ 56 million to be able to continue its most needed food assistance to 1.5 million displaced and vulnerable people until the end of the year. Individuals wishing to contribute can also do so by visiting WFP’s official site.
Article first published as Tears Tell Story of Syria: An Interview with Laure Chadraoui on Blogcritics.
Update: The World Food Programme has started a Syria relief fund. Visit the WFP Syria relief fund page.
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file photo of members of the Lou Nuer gather under the shade of a tree in Ethiopia after fleeing from South Sudan’s Jonglei state. (Credits: UNHCR/S.Tessema)
Jonglei, the largest state in South Sudan, has been hard hit by recent flooding with over 201,000 people impacted. The flooding has resulted in destruction of homes and farmland in Jonglei and other areas of South Sudan. Loss of farmland is devastating in a region that has long suffered from severe hunger and malnutrition.
Access to the flooded areas remains a significant challenge according to a United Nations report. Roads are poor in the area making it more difficult to move supplies.
Jonglei is not only suffering from floods but also continuing fighting between South Sudan’s army and a rebel group in Pibor County’s Likuangole town. The UN reports that fighting is also taking place in nearby Gumuruk town. In Pibor town people are fleeing as they anticipate the violence spreading.
The UN also reports that humanitarian aid groups are not able to access those in need in Likuangole and Gumuruk because of insecurity. Around 90,000 people cannot receive medical care.
South Sudan has been plagued by internal violence, particularly in Jonglei as rival tribes have continually launched attacks against each other. The government launched a disarmament program earlier this year to try and quell the violence.
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan says its “particularly concerned by the apparent emergence in Jonglei of an armed insurgency group linked to the militia leader David Yau Yau, which is believed to be acting in concert with groups of armed youths who have evaded the civilian disarmament operation in the state.”
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By 2009, almost 50 percent of the Pakistani population, or 83 million people, were food insecure, up from 38 percent in 2003. In the aftermath of the flooding, it is believed that this figure may yet have risen to upwards of 90 million. (WFP/Amjad Jamal)
Pakistan is conducting nuclear missile tests and reportedly plans to increase its nuclear weapons arsenal. While it develops these armaments flood relief efforts for its own people remain low on funding.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is urgently seeking 15 million dollars as it tries to feed flood victims. It’s part of a larger relief operation to help the hungry in Pakistan who are suffering from conflict, natural disasters and poverty.
WFP Pakistan Country director Jean-Luc Siblot says, “We could scale up our response to reach up to 250,000 families – that’s 1.7 million people. But that would mean using food stocks earmarked for relief to the displaced population in the northwest of the country and these would have to be replenished by December – that means funding is needed now.” WFP depends on voluntary donations from governments and the public.
WFP reported earlier in the month that it had to cut its school feeding program in parts of Pakistan because of low funding. It also reported that the funding shortage would cause its food supply to run out in January. Pakistan made a contribution earlier this month to the WFP operation but clearly more can be done.
Pakistan’s spending on the arms race in South Asia could be used to help the poor and suffering within its own borders. Pakistan, as well as India and other states, have a responsibility to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to fight hunger and poverty. India and Pakistan need more treaties and less arms testing. Neither country is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
A report from the Nuclear Disarmament group Global Zero says, “Pakistan does not officially reveal the cost of its secret nuclear program. In 2009, a credible assessment by an investigative journalist with expertise in the subject provided information on which we can calculate the overall nuclear program budget (weapons and missile delivery systems) to be approximately $781 million – $300 million for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and $481 million for the strategic missile delivery system. ”
Pakistan’s nuclear expenditures would easily pay for the cost of WFP’s 2013-2015 Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation, which is meant to feed some 7.3 million people in Pakistan at a cost of US $514 million dollars.
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Though many families have fled Homs, a few choose to return to their homes in the neighbourhood of Baba Amr despite the challenges. Of those who have fled from Homs to Aleppo,many were later forced to move along when the fighting intensified there as well (photo courtesy WFP/Abeer Etefa)
This week I have an article on the History News Network about why humanitarian aid is so critical for Syria. We have to look ahead too, with winter not too far around the corner.
If the conflict continues, humanitarian needs are only going to increase. When you add colder temperatures on top of this prospect, it is cause for great alarm. Winter clothing will be needed for refugees from the Syrian conflict, in addition to food and other basic items.
Here is some of the latest information from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) on its hunger relief efforts for Syrian war victims. In September WFP is feeding around 1.5 million people in 14 Syrian governorates affected by the conflict. WFP works through its partner the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
WFP says, “The situation remains tense across the country with armed activities on-going in various governorates and on international roads causing WFP dispatches to be delayed and monitoring activities hindered especially in Idleb, Homs and Aleppo.”
WFP relies on voluntary donations from the international community. There have been generous donations already from the United States and other countries. But so much more is needed given the size of the emergency. That is why funding for the U.S. Food for Peace program, which is a major supporter of WFP, is so crucial.
WFP currently faces a $61 million shortage of funding in Syria. Another vital aspect of WFP’s work is in the area of communications and logistics. These measures help connect aid groups so they can better coordinate operations and transportation.
WFP reported last week, “Urgent funding is also needed to continue implementing activities under the Special Operation (SO) 200477, aimed at augmenting WFP’s capacity in logistics, communication and security amidst the increasingly challenging environment.”
In addition to relief activities inside Syria there is help needed for hundreds of thousands who have fled the country into neighboring Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. WFP also needs additional funding for this operation.
Catholic Relief Services is also carrying on relief work to help the refugees, with their focus on Jordan and Lebanon. They are also urging people to contact Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to build support for helping the refugees and ending the conflict.
Article first published as Food, Clothing, Tech, and Logistics All Crucial for Syrian Aid on Blogcritics.
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A family’s destroyed car surrounded by ruins in Baba Amr in Syria
Credits: WFP/Laure Chadraoui
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Google+ will be hosting an event at 12pm Eastern time on Thursday, September 20th where people can learn more about the growing humanitarian crisis in Syria. Using a Google + Hangout representatives from WFP will discuss how critical food aid is for refugees from the conflict in Syria.
WFP is trying to feed 1.5 million people in Syria this month as well as thousands who have fled to neighboring countries. Abeer Etefa, a WFP Middle East officer, will be in Damascus, Syria to discuss how the UN food agency is carrying out this complex and dangerous relief mission.
She will be joined by members of the media and will take questions. You can submit your questions on Google+ or Twitter using the hashtag #wfpsyria.
WFP says that event will be broadcast on their Google+ Page and on YouTube. Facing a funding shortage of 61 million dollars for its relief work, WFP hopes to rally global support for helping war victims in Syria and throughout the Middle East.
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A drought-ravaged field in the Keyes region of southwestern Mali. Already impoverished families lost their food supply and source of income because of the drought. Credits: WFP/ Daouda Guirou
There is a struggle for survival ongoing for millions of people suffering from hunger in the Sahel region of Africa. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says that “one child in five in the Sahel dies before the age of five – malnutrition is an associated cause of more than 30% of these deaths.”
The Sahel includes the countries of Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cameroon, the Gambia, and Senegal.
Drought and conflict have caused food shortages, and families can survive only with humanitarian aid as they await the next harvest. There have been some good rains recently to encourage the growing of food. These same rains have also produced flooding that has impacted over a million people in the Sahel.
Refugee Crisis from Mali Conflict
The Sahel food crisis is also complicated because of a massive flow of refugees from Mali. In Northern Mali there has been fighting between the government and armed extremist groups. As one victim told the director of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), “Fear pushed me to leave my home. I saw people being killed in front of me when Gossi was taken over by armed groups at the end of June. I did not want to wait for my turn.”
The US State Department is alarmed by the increasing violence in Northern Mali and is urging a resolution to the conflict, stating, “We repeat the call on armed groups in northern Mali to renounce any connection with terrorist groups and enter into legitimate political negotiations on the basis of Mali’s territorial integrity.” There is significant fear of what may lie ahead should the chaos and hunger continue to proliferate in Mali and throughout the region.
The World Food Programme says it is feeding over 200,000 refugees in the surrounding countries. This includes Mauritania which is hosting over 100,000 refugees while struggling with its own hunger crisis.
The charity Save the Children is urging support for the refugees to prevent malnutrition in the camps. The children need food aid and also psychological and educational support to help them deal with the trauma.
Nutrition for Small Children Critical
Nutritional support for the smallest children is crucial in this crisis The lack of food for children under five years of age causes severe and irreversible physical and mental damage. Surveys being conducted right now by aid workers show high acute malnutrition rates in Senegal, Chad, Niger, and Mauritania.
Save the Children says that throughout the Sahel over one million children are at risk of severe malnutrition. A special food called Plumpy’Nut can save the children from the lifetime damage of malnutrition. Save the Children estimates that 1.5 million cartons of Plumpy’Nut are needed in the Sahel but funding is the issue. Aid agencies are voluntarily funded.
School Feeding to Help Communities
Providing food for children at school is a way to boost recovery for entire communities. The food offers an incentive for parents to send children back to school so it accomplishes both nutritional and educational objectives.
The World Food Programme hopes to resume school meals in the coming weeks in several Sahel nations. But will the funding and food supplies be there to allow these important programs to be carried out? In Mauritania, WFP is reporting a slight delay in its school feeding program due to food supply difficulties.
WFP is planning a major expansion of its school feeding in Mali. Aboubacar Guindo of WFP says the expansion will mean doubling the number of students it feeds in the Southern part of the country. He adds that the funding has yet to be secured.
Funding a Key Issue
Aid agencies need support from both governments and the public. What could be more devastating than not enough resources being dedicated to saving lives? WFP reports “a funding shortfall of US$ 300 million” for the region. Also a special operation for logistics in Mauritania remains completely underfunded, which could harm the delivery of aid.
WFP provides not only food but also logistical and technological support to improved aid delivery. The WFP Emergency Telecommunications cluster, for instance, has developed a radio system which will be implemented in Northern Mali to help improve coordination for the relief effort.
Recovery from one major drought is difficult enough. In the Sahel there have been a succession of droughts and the low resistance levels of the communities involved is a major reason for the crisis. Aid agencies are trying to find a way to provide emergency aid but also plant the seed for future food security.
Relief Funds for the Sahel Food Crisis:
Sahel Food Crisis Fund – World Food Programme
Mali Hunger Crisis Fund – Save the Children
West Africa/ Sahel Hunger Crisis Fund – Save the Children
Sahel Food Crisis Fund – Catholic Relief Services
Article first published as Hunger and Fear in the Sahel of Africa on Blogcritics
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file photo of members of the Lou Nuer gather under the shade of a tree in Ethiopia after fleeing from South Sudan’s Jonglei state. (Credits: UNHCR/S.Tessema)
The United Nations reports that heavy rains and flooding have affected 125,000 people in Jonglei, the largest state in South Sudan. The flood victims are in desperate need of food, medicine and other aid but roads are impassable preventing the delivery of supplies. The UN says it will use a helicopter to access the hardest-to-reach areas.
Meanwhile, 4500 people have been displaced from Likuangole town after fighting between South Sudan’s army and a rebel group. Aid groups have yet to reach the victims according to the latest report from the UN.
In the past year Jonglei has suffered through natural disasters of flooding and drought in addition to conflict among rival tribes. Major fighting has take place between the Lou Neur and Murle tribes. The government launched a disarmament campaign earlier this year but the latest fighting shows this initiative is a long way from completion.
The recent disasters will escalate the hunger crisis in the already devastated country. The UN World Food Programme has estimated that at least 4.7 million could suffer from hunger in South Sudan this year.
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Author William Lambers 