What are the effects of world hunger? world hunger simply means that there are l
ID: 1253832 • Letter: W
Question
What are the effects of world hunger? world hunger simply means that there are lots of people with insufficint amount of food.World hunger has become a major problem nowdays. It is presented in niedia to the public and,as a result, people be have become a ware about it.World hunger has sevious social and environmental effects,but there are also some solution.
Some of the social effects of world hunger are maluntrition and illitracy. When a human body does recieve daily suffiebt amount of nutrints,it will not do its functions well.If this condition remains for a long time, the body will evantually die.According to ziegler(2007) in 2006, hunger and diseases resulted from it were the main death cause of 36 million people (para2). In addition,people who do not have enough food have few chanaes to go foe education because obviouyly they will not be finaanialy mentally,and phisycally ready to study.
Some of the enviromental effects of world hunger are logging and agriculture. Result in trees many services to the environment where there are they are in industrial areas absorb carbon dioxide and provide us with oxygen, which in agricultural areas are in addition to the above work windbreaks to protect crops and provide shade and provide us with wood, and lead trees in the forest other services important to the environment they lose their leaves periodically and the fallen leaves decompose composed "humus" feeds the soil and maintains soil fertility, which provides a constant temperature of about wild animals that find shelter forest, a place suitable for life. According to Harcurt (2011) "many of these great impact on agricultural production and hence nutrition"(para3).
And forests from renewable resources, which goes a lot of human trees to get wood for the furniture industry, paper and clothing.
Has resulted in over-cutting of trees and forest degradation and its orientation towards drought
Some of the solution for world hunger are even though government is doing alot of of solution to reduce the world hunger but stil are facing this problem .The solution is that government should have to pay all basic expenses to under 18 and over 50 and also give enough employment to young people.According to Ziegler (2007) everyone should work together to find solution to this problem(para4).
One another solution for decrease the world hunger is government should give equal and fre education to all citizens even they are rich or poor.
In concluslion :The goverment should help world hunger or poverty to support people with food and maney . Also, someone must fix problems such as health or eduction to prevat hunger.Also, climate change should be fied to make the enviromental better .If everyone helps our to support people with money or food we wont find world hunger.
Explanation / Answer
Many of us living in the upper class nations of the world would most likely never experience what
true hunger is. Hunger maybe what we consider the result of missing a meal or when our stomach
growls, restless for food to fill its void. But hunger is not simply this. It is a craving or urgent need
for food or a specific nutrient such that weakness debilitation or pain is brought about by a
prolonged lack of food. I don't believe many of us consumers have gone hungry' to the extent of
No other disaster can compare to the devastation of hunger as the number of people who die every
two days from it is equivalent to those killed instantly from the Hiroshima bomb in Japan. About
840 million people in the world are hungry. Ninety-five percent of these people live in a developing
country (Appendix 4). Hunger is not simply caused by an insufficient food supply, overpopulation
or by nature's wrath. It also cannon be solved instantly by wealth, technology or by democracy.
Talking about hunger also means addressing poverty population growth, international economy,
development, employment, agriculture and energy resources. Similarly, if we want to eliminate
famine, we need to first understand the economic, social, ideological, political, philosophical,
cultural and psychological perspective. Hunger is caused by global and social inequality between
developed and developing countries. Trade policies, foreign aid and inefficient development
programs usually result in developed nations taking advantage of developing nation rather than
helping them.
Many may think there isn't enough food in the world to support everyone and such that in 2002 it
resulted to having 840 million people in the world suffering from hunger and its effects. It is a
common misconception that there isn't enough food to go around, but as we go about everyday
eating carelessly, pacing up and down aisles upon aisles of shelves, bulging out with food from all
over the world, how can we assume that? "Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds
of food per person a day worldwide: two and half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of
fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk and eggs" (12 Myths). Trade policies,
that emphasize deregulation and privatization, have led to a decline in economic growth in third
world countries. Thus solving the hunger crisis is hindered as developing nations struggle to
compete with capitalist nations who yield stronger economic
structures in the free market. Free trade is like putting a rabbit and tiger in the same cage. In the
global market, all countries are suppose to be equal with fair trade in exchanging good between
each other, but this convention of free trade has not been successful. With over 80 percent of the
malnourished children living in a developing country, food flow is needed in these unfortunate
countries more that ever. Food should not be exported from developing countries to developed
countries, but the other way around to where food is considered necessary and required. "In most
Third World countries exports have boomed while hunger has continued or actually worsened" (12
Myths). Debts have forced undeveloped nations to overgraze and export agriculture to an
unsustainable point, just to make ends meet. In reality, this situation is far from merely joining two
points together, but to also construct a system where life can be lasting.
Debts have been a major contributor to the hunger crisis. Forced to borrow money from
organizations such as the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), these third
world countries are subject to structural adjustment policies. These policies pose unreasonable and
unsustainable constraints upon the livelihood of the citizens inhabiting these poor nations. The WB
and the IMF are usually controlled by developed, more powerful nations, such as the Group of
Eight (G8), and believe that competition from the free market will drive these undeveloped nations
to progress, when the opposite is happening. Failing to see the damage that is already done, these
aid lenders are only interested in any short term commercial interests that they can obtain. Thus, to
repay the debts that developing countries owe, much of their resources are exported out or exploited
(Appendix 5). Consequently, many industries that used to support the backbone of these third world
nations now have to focus on exports to other nations so they can pay back the government, which
in turn will pay back the IMF or the WB. Sadly due to this high focus on exporting out food, the
people in these nations hardly have enough for themselves and thus, the hunger problem is created
or worsened.
In addition to this crisis of the exportation of food surpluses, a tariff is usually charged on goods
from developing nations that are exporting to developed nations. As dispersedly these countries
need to export food cheaply for a profit, the dream of producing and selling at
a high price with a high profit almost unreachable. In the world of free trade, the market controls the
prices and what is bought and sold. Produces look to sell at the highest possible price, yet buyers
look to purchase for the lowest, cheapest price. After knowing this, you make think that Africa has a
definite advantage due to their cheap labour and the massive amount of labour workers to do it, yet
it is not so. Since "African countries could produce some crops much more cheaply than in the
United States or in Europe" (World Hunger), this would mean money loss for those in the
developed countries. Reluctant to subject their farmers to the same economic situation as the rest of
the world and compete in a place where they know they won't win; developed countries came up
with a plan to charge tariffs or a tax on products from these developing nations. "In Britain, $1.6
million/ year is spent on subsidies. The price of a tariff free Britain sugar is cheaper than taxed
African sugar" (World Hunger). How can we say that this is fair, when it is definitely not? During a
World Trade Organization summit in Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003,
"Four West African countries- Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Benin- requested that the United Sates
cut its $3 billion annual cotton subsidy (which totaled more than the value of the four countries'
combined harvest) to American Farmers. Their request was denied, and 25,000 U.S. farmers shared
the $3 billion" (World Hunger).
Unfortunately, because Europe, Asia and the US are the powerhouses of the world, they control the
market with insignificant developing nations having no say.
The powerhouses of the world have contributed many things in the developing world with foreign
aid being one of them.
"At the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil, industrialized (developed) countries pledged to devote 0.7
percent of their annual income to Overseas Development Aid (ODA). Ten years later, only five
nations met this target. (The United States gave 0.12 percent, while England gave 0.3 percent.)"
(World Hunger).
How effective their actions were is up for debate. Foreign aid, including debt relief or cancellation,
does not assist third world development in hunger alleviation as ineffective programs produces a
feedback loop of famine and poverty. Similar to the debt situation, the more assistant these
developing countries receive, the more they seem to sink into their problem of hunger.
An example of a catastrophic program that has been developed to assist
third world countries is the World Bank (Appendix 1).
"Of the 66 less developed countries receiving money from thee World Bank for more than 25
years37 are no better today than they were before they received such loans. Of these 37 countries,
20 actually are worst off today than they were before receiving aid from the World Bank" (The
Third World).
As these ineffective programs that cause more harm then good affect the economic growth of
developing nations, these countries are continuously trapped in a viscous cycle of debt, hunger and
poverty. Unable to grow economically due to the lack of economic freedom, wealth and prosperity
are never seen. The World Bank itself was never meant for supporting the welfare institution of the
world. It was first developed to support development post WWII in developing countries such as the
ones within Europe.
Another effort in alleviation hunger was made at the World Food Summit where their goal was to
halve the world hunger situation by 2015. "Although a few countries can claim significant gains in
combating hunger, their success masks a worsening world situation: Since 1990, the number of
undernourished people in the developing world increased by 80 million." (World Hunger)
According to current statistics and predictions, the World food Summit will miss its target by
approximately 200 million people (Appendix 3).
All these broken and failing programs have devastated the crisis in third world countries. Instead of
pulling out of hunger, they are sucked in even further as the consequences of foreign aid eventually
causes the initial condition to recur, if not worsen. In fact these terrible programs made to the third
world harms the common taxpayer who helps indirectly in provided the aid by forcing them to
support a program too big to carry (Appendix 2).
When you ask a typical American on their viewpoint on aid and foreign relief they would probably
respond to you by saying they feel that the United States has done an excellent job and should even
cut back on foreign aid to solve their deficit problem. Sad to say, the United States is ranked only
fourth in foreign assistance and less than one percent of their budget accounts for foreign aid- far
from the twenty percent many Americans believe. The reality is that eliminating foreign aid or even
doubling it perhaps would not even make that smallest blimp on the radar screen for the U.S.'s
deficit problem. Irrelevant methods of humanitarian development, which are meant for a first
world dilemma, fail to address crucial elements in unraveling hunger such as basic, effective
governance, support and motivation due to a basic misconception about aid.
Humanitarian relief programs have not been any help in aiding the situation that is occurring in the
third world. Many times, these humanitarian efforts are ineffective such as that of the development
in Somalia.
"In December, Pierre Glassmann, the African Deleegate- General for the Red Cross, demanded to
know How come UNICEF-Somalia has thirteen people in Nairobi and no one in Somalia?' Marco
Barsotti of the United Nations Development Program responded astoundingly, "In a situation of
war, we don't operate" (The Third World).
How can we say that these programs work when clearly in a situation of war, UNICEF stated that
they won't help? Then what is the point of this aid? "Consequently, official humanitarian aid to
provide short-term disaster relief, although not harmful, has often proven to be redundant" (The
Third World). In another situation, a program developed by the Americans called Food for Peace
was created in the name of long termed relief for underdeveloped countries.
"As Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, explains, "Food for Peace was created more
to dump surplus American crops in foreign markets than to alleviate starvation; just 14 percent of
the food shipments go to disaster-stricken areasAs a result, Food for Peace has tended to discourage
agricultural development in poor countries" (The Third World).
Due to the cheap prices of American grown agriculture from tax subsidies and government support,
many times mountains of food go to waste or storage, untouched and rotting away. Programs such
as Food for Peace are just merely an excuse to get rid of junk and giving it away with the ideal of
one man's trash is another man's treasure.' Developing countries don't need leftovers but a new
beginning from these developed countries if we are to see true improvement in hunger and poverty
elimination.
Another crazy' idea to assist' the third world was to enforce a government of democracy like we
have in the most developed nations on them. The incentives was if developed countries have a
democracy and were doing well, putting the same democracy on developing nations should make
them improve also. Many have tried in attempts to change the social and political structures of these
nations but most of fail with this aid.
"The European Western democracy states: nation wise political
parties, a parliament, the office of president, and even a national anthem and a flag. But the results
have been tragic. In Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya it has been a matter of which tribal leader can
fight his way to the top by ruthless means. Thus, we now see such tyrants as Suddam Hussein and
Hasfez Assad in power" (The Third World).
How can we say that a governmental system will aid these countries into development and therefore
improve their social conditions? The social structures of these countries are defiantly more
complicated than those of the technological world. Values are in the tribes and not the state as "First
loyalties usually are to the family, then the tribe and perhaps further to a coalition of tribes" (The
Third World). Developed nations should not make the same mistake on enforcing western policies
on the east as they did many years ago by drawing borders for so-called countries. We already
forced angry tribes to live together, and if that wasn't enough, we are going to try to make them
work and walk hand-in-hand together? I don't think so. What is needed is the understanding that
essential and basis entrepreneurial skills and motivation is needed. Aid is too loose of a term used to
cover up devious acts with other intentions then help in mind. We also cannot forget that "If
however, the conditions for development are not present, than aid-which in these circumstances will
be the only source of external capital-will be necessarily unproductive and therefore ineffective"
(Ending Hunger). We need to look at the number of developing nations pulling out of poverty to say
that our alleviation efforts are truly effective.
In the poorest countries of the world, debt repayments divert scarce financial resources from social
investments necessary for sustainable development.
"Enforced poverty in the Third World jeopardizes U.S. jobs, wages, working conditions as
corporations seek cheaper labour abroad. In a global economy, what American workers have
achieved in employment, wage levels and working conditions can be protected only when people in
every country are freed from economic desperation" (12 Myths).
The mindsets of industrialized nations fail to see the basic elements these underdeveloped countries
need. Rather than giving them more restrictions and oppression, freedom and a chance to develop
on a balanced playing field is essential. To be on the pathway to end world hunger, even by the end
of this decade, opportunity as a world community has
to be seized. Although there isn't a one-size fits all solution to world hunger, steps should be taken
to improve the economic status of these impoverished countries. There may be no flashing neon
warning sign to signal us when the end is near, but eventually, what happens in the third world will
effect the first world. Next time you are in a supermarket, take some time to purchase Fair Trade
products or even encourage the market to sell more of these products. Support food banks and
programs that actually assist developing countries in a positive way. Read more about world hunger
and don't let the government or corporations get the better of you. Hunger is not just a dilemma in
the developing worlds; it is one that you can help with.
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