Category Archives: global hunger

October 11, 2011 · 12:56 pm

A Ghostly Tale Near the Ohio River

100-4602This week at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Ohio, I was helping to arrange a fundraiser to benefit the YWCA and global hunger relief efforts. Not far from the campus, located in Delhi Township, is the Ohio River.

You can see the river from certain vantage points looking down from the Mount. And since it’s Halloween, it’s worth mentioning a tale about a graveyard hidden away in the woods.

Many years ago, when nightfall came, residents of Delhi reported mysterious lights and the eerie tune of a fiddler coming from the graveyard. So scared were the residents that no one dared go to the cemetery. Was this a ghost? No one knew. Would anyone ever know?

In the 1960’s, a Mount St. Joseph professor, Cecil Hale, appeared to have found the answer. Henry Darby (1781-1852), a prominent abolitionist, lived right near the site of the graveyard.

scan0041Hale found out the ghost reports started during the time of the Underground Railroad. This was the secret network that guided slaves to freedom, and was extremely active in the years leading up to the Civil War.

Hale believed the strange lights and music at the graveyard were signals to slaves across the river in Kentucky that it was safe to cross. He wrote a play called the Legend of Fiddler’s Green which tells this story.

scan0040The Ohio River was indeed a major route on the Underground Railroad. So active was the area that the Underground Railroad Freedom Center was eventually located in Cincinnati.

Was this ghostly legend one way that residents of Delhi were secretly working to help operate the Underground Railroad? It appears reasonable that the ghostly mystery is indeed solved. Wait! There are some lights coming from over the hill from the direction of the college. And a strange eerie tune. Oh Great!

The global hunger relief fundraiser is to benefit the Catholic Relief Services school feeding program in Sudan, the Aschiana Foundation, and Edesia, a non-profit organization which produces plumpy’nut. For more information please write here.

Article first published as A Ghostly Tale Near the Ohio River on Blogcritics. (article first published in October 2010)

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October 11, 2011 · 2:56 am

Food for Afghan Schoolchildren Runs Out as Drought Strikes

How can we expect to write the peace without basic food and education for Afghan children? Low funding for WFP has forced the reduction of school feeding programs in Afghanistan. (WFP/Ebadullah Ebadi)

As drought and high food prices have descended upon Afghanistan, safety nets have been taken away from children. Low funding for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) means 1.5 million Afghan children are no longer receiving a school feeding ration.

The situation is getting worse. WFP reports that the supply of fortified high energy biscuits for Afghan school children will run out by November. This will bring a halt to school feeding in Afghanistan and leave another 500,000 children without a school meal. A donation from India is expected to arrive in December, but this will allow for only a limited resumption of the program.

WFP depends entirely on voluntary donations by the international community. Since funding has run dry, all year they have been forced to reduce their school feeding and other food aid programs in Afghanistan.

While they have done this, drought conditions have set in around parts of the country causing food shortages. High food prices remain a threat to the entire impoverished Afghan population.

While hunger escalates in Afghanistan and around the world, the U.S. Congress is proposing reducing funding for the Food for Peace and other global hunger fighting programs.

Food is desperately needed right now in Afghanistan. The international community needs to support urgent food aid for the drought-affected areas. School feeding should be resumed at once and expanded where possible.

Afghanistan’s future cannot be built upon hunger, suffering, and a lack of education. Child feeding programs take on the utmost urgency as malnutrition and lack of education threaten an entire generation of Afghans.

Article first published as Food for Afghan Schoolchildren Runs Out as Drought Strikes on Blogcritics.

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October 9, 2011 · 10:16 pm

Over 1 Million in Yemen Denied Emergency Food Rations

Aisha is an internally displaced Yemeni girl in Southern Yemen living in an elementary school. She is one of many Yemeni children who are suffering from hunger and displacement. WFP and other aid agencies need support in order to carry out child feeding and rehabilitation programs. (WFP/Abeer Etefa)

Over one million Yemenis did not receive emergency food rations in September because of low funding for the UN World Food Programme (WFP). The UN food agency depends on voluntary donations from the international community.

As food prices have risen dramatically in 2011, impoverished families have been pushed deeper into hunger. Reports have shown families resorting to skipping meals.

In late 2010 WFP drew up a plan to distribute emergency food rations to around 1.8 million Yemenis who were struggling to afford basics like bread. The idea was a safety net for vulnerable families to prevent malnutrition and disease from gaining strength.

Back in February, I wrote a letter in the New York Times urging acceptance and funding of the plan by the U.S. and international community. As 2011 evolved into a year of protests, instability, and skyrocketing prices, this food aid took on even more urgency.

However, funding has been so limited that seven food-insecure governorates (around 700,000 people) were not able to receive any distributions this year. The cuts deepened as 500,000 more Yemenis were left off the most recent round of food distributions in September.

About 1.2 million Yemenis who should have been receiving food rations from WFP last month did not. But this has been the reality of food assistance programs for Yemen. They have been underfunded as the hunger crisis continues to deepen.

In addition, WFP’s Food for Education program for children has only had two distributions in the last two years. Both of them have been limited and able to reach only part of the intended recipients.

This initiative gives children food rations to take home from school. It’s a great plan for eliminating hunger and keeping kids in class. However, this year’s WFP Food for Education distribution reached only 59,000 of 115,000 planned beneficiaries. The ration size also shrank from two items to one. A program that should be expanded to reach hundreds of thousands of additional children has been getting by on relative scraps for years now.

UNICEF also is suffering from severe funding shortages as they try to help Yemen tackle the crushing child malnutrition crisis. I have reported on these funding shortages on numerous occasions as children lacking in nutrition are at risk of lasting physical and mental damage. It’s clear that no favorable outcome for Yemen will come about unless child nutrition is made a priority.

Anthony Lake, UNICEF’s director, said this week, “Malnutrition rates were alarmingly high in the country even before the current violence broke out, and its impact on the poorest people has only been compounded by rising food prices and collapsing basic health services. Of 3.6 million children under five years of age in Yemen, at least 43 per cent are underweight and 58 per cent are stunted.”

Imagine if a generation of Yemenis were not malnourished. They could solve many of their societal and governmental problems on their own.

What if we gave them that chance? We could do that almost right away with a full supply of plumpy’nut to knock out all existing cases of child malnutrition. A food for education system would do wonders because school feeding promotes nutrition and learning.

If we take action on these fronts, Yemen has a chance for a prosperous and peaceful future. The alternative is to continue to ignore the cries of hunger, and children stunted in growth and mind. That road, we know, is full of peril for all.

Article first published as Over 1 Million in Yemen Denied Emergency Food Rations on Blogcritics.

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October 9, 2011 · 3:49 am

Food for Peace, Brazil and the World Food Prize

One of this year’s World Food Prize winners is H.E. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former President of Brazil. His work fighting hunger included developing the national school feeding  program. An excerpt from the World Food Prize web site reads:

“The national School Feeding Program has had a far-reaching impact on reducing child malnutrition by providing nutritious meals to children in all grades of Brazil’s public schools across the country. Forty-seven million were being served in 2010, with a minimum of 30 percent of the food supplied from local farms. Child malnutrition fell 61.9 percent between 2003 and 2009, and all age groups experienced improved access to quality food.”

Brazil has come a a long way in its fight against hunger and developing its school feeding. Back in the 1960s Brazil got help from the U.S. Food for Peace program. Here is a photo of a milk shipment leaving for Brazil. George McGovern, a World Food Prize winner himself, is to the far right.

1962 Photo of the largest milk donation under the “Food for Peace” program leaving from Brooklyn, NY heading toward Brazil. Left to right is the Brazilian ambassador Roberto de Oliveira Campos; Capt. Timothy Harrington and George McGovern, the Food for Peace director. The milk will be used for maternal feeding and the school lunch program. (Library of Congress)

Today, Brazil supports school milk programs such as the one in Haiti. See my article Got Milk? Haiti’s Farmers and Now Schools Do.

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October 7, 2011 · 2:41 am

Afghanistan 10 years later- Starvation Threatens War-Torn Country

October 7th marks the 10 year anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. And as if war has not been enough, famine is descending upon Afghans.

Drought has struck 14 provinces in Afghanistan. Crops have been ruined and food supplies are almost gone. The charity Oxfam says, “Nearly three quarters of the people living in the affected areas say that they will run out of food in less than two months.”

As famine conditions have strengthened, funding for UN World Food Programme (WFP) has diminished. The UN food agency relies entirely on voluntary donations.

WFP was forced to cut school meals for hundreds of thousands of Afghan children earlier this year. In a country deeply mired in poverty, school meals are a lifeline the children desperately need.

Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of hunger and malnutrition in the entire world. If this crisis, which is often ignored by policymakers, were given more attention many of Afghanistan’s ills could be remedied. For food is the foundation of peace, education and literacy, and maybe most of all hope. Hope and Afghanistan are two words not often associated.

There is talk of donor fatigue when it comes to Afghanistan and hunger relief in general, but this is nonsense. Food aid programs make up less than one tenth of one percent of the entire federal budget.

Congress has proposed reducing funding for the Food for Peace and other hunger fighting  programs. This is such a mistake when peace in Afghanistan and other parts of the world depend on fighting hunger.

After World War II, when a CARE package center was opened in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio people flocked there to buy food for hungry people overseas. The first one to do so was a former World War I infantryman.

The first World War saw immense human suffering from both warfare and the resulting famine, and this donor had compassion and first-hand understanding of their plight. Americans from that generation did not suffer from donor fatigue, and continued feeding the hungry during the war and afterwards. Following the Second World War millions more were saved, and Europe was rebuilt from the important foundation of food.

Today, we cannot forget about Afghanistan nor let the people suffer. On this 10 year anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, let’s work to win the peace. It can start with fighting hunger.

Article first published as Afghanistan 10 years later- Starvation Threatens War-Torn Country at Blogcritics.

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Filed under advocacy, Afghanistan, Congress, drought, global hunger, malnutrition, Oxfam, School feeding, The Roadmap to End Global Hunger, World Food Programme

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October 6, 2011 · 2:52 am

Friendship Trains, Global Hunger and Plumpy’nut

Baby Food for the Friendship Train in 1947.

A group of Army personnel went on a special mission in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio in the fall of 1947. This group of soldiers was helping to load boxes of baby food onto a truck. The following day a train was to roll into Cincinnati to pick up the food. Its destination: Europe.

World War II was over, but the peace was not yet won. Millions of people in the war-devastated countries were suffering from food shortages. Harsh winters and drought had followed the war. Reconstruction still had a way to go. Children were at severe risk of stunted growth if they could not get the right nutrients.

Americans took action. The Friendship Train, as it was called, went from coast to coast picking up food like the baby formula. One of the great achievements in American history was helping to rebuild Europe after World War II, and the Friendship Train was part of this.

The world scene now is no different, in the sense that food is needed to win the peace. If children are hungry, action has to be taken.

What better way to do so than a Friendship Train of plumpy’nut heading toward the areas of suffering and conflict around the globe? Plumpy’nut is the special peanut paste that rescues children from life-threatening malnutrition. The key is to get plumpy’nut to every child at risk from malnutrition so they can be saved.

Low funding and lack of political will are often what prevents this. While there are many great efforts ongoing among the public to raise funds and promote plumpy’nut, getting all the political leaders on board is essential. It has to be a team effort, as Josette Sheeran, the World Food Programme’s director, often points out.

A Friendship Train of plumpy’nut today could rescue every malnourished child whether it’s in East Africa, Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, Afghanistan, Guatemala, or any of the other suffering countries. It’s critical to reach the children because without nutrition in the first thousand days of life, they suffer lasting physical and mental damage.

It is unacceptable that low funding prevents foods like plumpy’nut from reaching malnourished children. Food aid is relatively inexpensive when it comes to foreign policy spending. Global hunger-fighting programs make up less than one-tenth of one percent of the entire U.S. federal budget.

So let’s get the Friendship Train rolling. All aboard with plumpy’nut. Save lives and help an entire generation of children to be healthy and strong enough to overcome the challenges their country may face.

Article first published as Friendship Trains, Global Hunger and Plumpy’nut on Blogcritics.

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Filed under advocacy, Books, drought, East Africa, East Africa drought, Europe, global hunger, History, malnutrition, plumpy'nut, School feeding, World Food Programme, World War II

October 5, 2011 · 4:39 am

October 5th, 1947 – A Television First To Save Europe From Starvation

President Harry Truman addressed the nation about the hunger crisis facing Europe (photo courtesy of the Truman Library)

On October 5, 1947 the first presidential address ever televised from the White House was delivered by Harry Truman. The President discussed the urgent hunger crisis facing Europe and how Americans could help through food conservation.

At that time Europe was struggling in its recovery from World War II. Rebuilding from the devastation was difficult enough, but a harsh winter followed by a drought during 1947 ruined crops. Food shortages were rampant and Europe needed food to survive and rebuild.

President Truman said of Europe, “The nations of Western Europe will soon be scraping the bottom of the food barrel. They cannot get through the coming winter and spring without help–generous help–from the United States and from other countries which have food to spare.

“I know every American feels in his heart that we must help to prevent starvation and distress among our fellow men in other countries…. Their most urgent need is food. If the peace should be lost because we failed to share our food with hungry people, there would be no more tragic example in all history of a peace needlessly lost.”

Food from the United States helped Europe get through the winter of 1947-1948 and helped set the foundation for the Marshall Plan. It was this initiative that brought about Europe’s recovery.

In addition to President Truman, other speakers for the program included Secretary of State George C. Marshall, Secretary of Agriculture Clinton P. Anderson, Secretary of Commerce W. Averell Harriman, and Charles Luckman, who was the Chairman of the Citizens Food Committee.

Read the full text of President Truman’s October 5, 1947 statement.

Listen to George Marshall’s remarks on October 5, 1947. (audio is faint)

Read how Americans fought hunger in Europe during the Fall of 1947:

Take in a Silent Guest this Thanksgiving (The 1947 Silent Guest Program to Buy CARE packages)

Transformational Leadership in Tackling Global Hunger Crisis (The Friendship Train of 1947)

Old Soldiers Never Die, They Just Fade Away…..And Fight Global Hunger (CARE Packages after World War II)

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Filed under drought, Europe, global hunger, Harry Truman, History, malnutrition, peace, World War II

September 30, 2011 · 3:02 am

Afghanistan: Drought Causes Severe Food Shortages for Millions

Over 7 million people suffer from hunger in Afghanistan, with many more bordering on the edge of food insecurity. Due to this year's drought and the reduced wheat harvest more Afghans will be now be joining the ranks of the hungry and food insecure. (WFP/Patrick Andrade )

Afghanistan is on the verge of a huge humanitarian disaster. Drought has ruined food supplies, and three million Afghans will face starvation if aid agencies do not have the resources in time to respond.

The charity Oxfam says , “The situation is made all the more urgent by the fact that most of the affected areas are inaccessible during winter, and will soon be cut off from any sort of assistance. Aid is needed now to ensure that families have the support that they need to see them through winter and to the next harvest.”

The lead agency in fighting hunger in Afghanistan, the UN World Food Programme (WFP), is low on funding. WFP, which relies on voluntary donations from governments and the public, is about $200 million short for this year’s Afghanistan mission. WFP will require additional funds to feed more people suffering from hunger because of the drought.

The United Nations issued a report in July warning of the coming disaster. The UN stated, “The prediction of droughts in a protracted crisis country like Afghanistan is very worrying.”

For even before the recent drought took hold, Afghanistan was a country in a severe hunger crisis, with children suffering the most. The UN report summary highlights the startling numbers which show that “68% of the Afghan population is affected by some form of food insecurity with 31% food-insecure and 37% borderline food-insecure.” This means most Afghans struggle to get basic foods. Any shock like a spike in food prices, or disaster like drought, is devastating to Afghans who have little food.

For children the situation is gravest. In Afghanistan 40% of children under five years of age are underweight with 54% stunting. Children are struggling to get nutrition when they need it most in those early years. Children suffer lasting physical and mental damage from malnutrition in the first thousand days of life. With such poor health among its children, Afghanistan’s future is virtually doomed.

There is an ongoing war against hunger and want in Afghanistan. The drought is another fierce attack on an already vulnerable population. A major humanitarian crisis will take place this fall and winter in Afghanistan without interventions now. The Oxfam press release states, “Nearly three quarters of the people living in the affected areas say that they will run out of food in less than two months.”

Food prices have also been on the rise in Afghanistan, a huge blow to the drought-impacted areas. The UN says, “These additional stressors will affect these populations in addition to the 37% of the national population who are considered to be borderline food-insecure and who are currently planned to receive supplementary food support.”

It’s important to keep in mind that with WFP facing such low funding, school feeding and food for work projects have already been reduced. There are almost 500,000 children who lost their school meal ration because of this shortage. So these safety nets are currently not available to many Afghans at a time when they need them more than ever.

What Afghanistan needs now is a prompt intervention to save people from starvation in the coming months. What they also need are more long-term investments toward building the resiliency of communities facing drought.

Afghanistan cannot build a peace while its population suffers from hunger and want. No society can. The U.S. Congress right now is debating how much to fund its Food for Peace and other global hunger fighting programs. They need look no further than Afghanistan to understand how critical food assistance is to nations in crisis.

Article first published as Acting Now Can Save Afghans from Starvation on Blogcritics.

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Filed under advocacy, Afghanistan, Congress, drought, global hunger, malnutrition, Oxfam, School feeding, The Roadmap to End Global Hunger, World Food Programme

September 28, 2011 · 3:19 am

Famine in Somalia. Is the Wolf at the Door in Afghanistan?

WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga at the mini-summit on the Horn of Africa in New York on September 24. (Copyright: WFP/Dena Gudaitis)

Aid agencies are racing to save people from starvation in Somalia. UNICEF says that a child dies every 6 minutes in the famine-ravaged country. Severe drought in East Africa, coupled with the conflict in Somalia, has produced one of the worst humanitarian tragedies in decades.

Is Afghanistan next to be attacked by famine? Drought has struck the north and western part of Afghanistan. An Oxfam press release states, “Nearly three quarters of the people living in the affected areas say that they will run out of food in less than two months.”

Asuntha Charles, head of Oxfam in Afghanistan, says “Governments need to wake up to the gravity of this crisis and ensure they are ready to respond before the situation gets worse. Delays will just make things harder for families already struggling to cope. The drought has completely destroyed the wheat crop in some areas. People are reducing the amount of food they are eating and selling what little they have. We still have time to stop this becoming a disaster, but only if we act now.”

The United Nations World Food Programme has been facing low funding for its Afghan relief operation this year, so there was already a hunger crisis firmly in place before this drought took hold.

WFP, at last report, was about $200 million short on funding for its 2011 operation. Earlier this year WFP had to cut school meals for about 500,000 Afghan children because of the low funding. For children in developing countries school meals are often the only meal they receive the entire day. Afghanistan is a country that needs a nationwide school meals program, not a reduction in child feeding. WFP programs to help small farmers are also impacted by low funding.

It is expected that almost 3 million people will need food aid this fall in Afghanistan, on top of a population of 7 million already suffering from hunger. In a country seeking to build peace, will it now be confronted with famine? Afghanistan needs an emergency response now as well as plans to prevent future tragedies.

This past week in New York Josette Sheeran, the UN World Food Programme’s director, urged actions to prevent famine from striking again. Where there are investments in food security, as well as open access, a powerful line of defense can be built against famine. The drought In East Africa is proof of this.

Sheeran says, “The fact is while droughts may not be preventable, famines are. In areas where the humanitarian community has access, millions of hungry are being reached with life-saving action and lasting hunger solutions.”

These actions range “from supporting small holder farmers to deploying anti-hunger safety net programmes like school feeding.” Sheeran adds, “In my own agency, through a community adaptation program called MERET, the Ethiopian government, with support by WFP has been has build a sustainable land management and rain catchment program that has vastly increased food production and mitigated the impact of the drought.”

These programs require enough funding from the international community. However, WFP has faced funding shortages for its operations all year, including in Somalia.

The international community needs to act fast in Somalia and Afghanistan. In addition to meeting emergency needs, long-term solutions have to be put in place. We cannot afford another humanitarian disaster.

Article first published as Famine in Somalia. Is the Wolf at the Door in Afghanistan? on Blogcritics.

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Filed under advocacy, Afghanistan, Africa, Congress, drought, East Africa, East Africa drought, Ethiopia, famine, global hunger, Josette Sheeran, malnutrition, Middle East, Oxfam, plumpy'nut, Somalia, The Roadmap to End Global Hunger, World Food Programme

September 28, 2011 · 3:14 am

Without Nutrition and Education Yemen Cannot Thrive

UNICEF Nutrition Officer Dr. Rajia Sharhan holds a young child at a therapeutic feeding centre in Sana'a, the Yemeni capital. (UNICEF Yemen/2011/Halldorsson)

UNICEF reports there are “very high” malnutrition rates among children under 5 years of age in the Hajjah governorate of Yemen. These startling findings include the Haradh, Bakeel Al Meer and Mustaba districts. The malnutrition rates are “way above the emergency thresholds.” Some of the cases are the most severe type of malnutrition.

The UNICEF report, released this week, says a team of aid workers “observed a nonfunctional public health system, high diarrhea prevalence, sub-optimal nutrition interventions especially for the severely malnourished.”

Without the proper nutrients small children are threatened with lasting physical and mental damage. Many children in Yemen never recover after being attacked by malnutrition. Intervention is needed swiftly.

UNICEF says that in the aforementioned districts 48.3% of the children are underweight, similar to the national average, a telling statistic about Yemen. The UN World Food Programme says, “the proportion of underweight children is the third highest in the world after India and Bangladesh.”

UNICEF has continued to run its operations in Yemen even during the most recent escalation of violence in the capital of Sanaa. However, the agency faces a funding shortage and does not have the resources to reach all cases of malnutrition. UNICEF and the World Food Programme depend on voluntary funding from governments and the public.

While there is increasing international focus on Yemen with its political struggles and Al Qaeda presence, this has not translated into support for child feeding and rehabilitation. Meanwhile, the presence of the U.S. military has escalated via drone planes as part of the fight against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Every day is a struggle for children to survive in Yemen. The crisis facing Yemen’s children extends to education where there is precious little of it. UNICEF is trying to help reverse this backward trend.

Geert Cappelaere, the director of UNICEF Yemen says, “Without an educated population, no country thrives. In a country where only 70% of boys and 60% of girls receive basic education no effort should be spared in making sure every single child is sent to school this year.” UNICEF, USAID, CHF International and Save the Children are partnering with Yemen’s Ministry of Education on a Back to School Campaign.

The idea is to increase the enrollment of Yemeni children in school and reduce the dropout rate. Both of these tasks are huge challenges in this impoverished country facing political upheaval. The campaign features stressing the importance of education, the distribution of school supplies as well as teacher training.

Roberta Contine of CHF International says, “I would like to stress the importance of implementing such capacity building interventions in regions with emergencies where teachers are set to provide psychosocial support for children aside from traditional education.”

Yemen’s Minister of Education Dr. Abdulsalam Al-Jawfi says, “Education is a collective responsibility for everyone…. We also appeal to political parties, community organizations, and the media and mosque preachers to enthusiastically engage during the campaign and ensure that access to education is guaranteed to all children without any exception.”

One tool in increasing school attendance though is missing. This would be the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) school feeding initiative to provide take-home rations. Low funding for WFP forced suspension of the program in 2010. Since 2008, high food prices and low funding from the international community have devastated the WFP Food for Education in Yemen. Should this program be restarted and expanded nationwide, it would have a positive impact on increasing school attendance and lowering malnutrition rates.

Dr. Rajia Sharhan of UNICEF points out that school feeding would have the effect of improving the health of future mothers. Yemen needs to be developing a national school lunch program.

But Yemen faces so many hurdles before they can start attacking these problems. The political turmoil and violence has to come to an end. The international community has to support the work of UNICEF, WFP and other aid agencies.

Article first published as Without Nutrition and Education Yemen Cannot Thrive on Blogcritics.

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