Items of interest

World Food Programme delivers

One of the challenges to alleviating hunger is transportation. There may be plenty of food in one area, but no way to get it to another place where it is desperately needed. That's where relief organizations such as the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) come in.

Moving food by sea, air, river, road, and rail, the WFP transports more food aid than any other organization. An average of 40 ships carrying WFP food are on the seas at any one time. And after the food gets to port, WFP is ready to clear mines, build roads or bridges, renovate airstrips, and take other measures to ensure its arrival.

In 1999, WFP delivered 3.4 million tons of food to people in 82 countries, serving approximately 89 million individuals worldwide. Since most of us don't buy our food in tons, it's hard to visualize these large numbers. But here's an example of how much food is needed for, say, 100,000 people: If you wanted to give each one the usual food ration, which is a bit over a pound a day, you'd need about 57 truckloads to sustain them for a month.

Can we cut hunger in half?

Five Years Ago in Rome, participants in the World Food Summit pledged to work toward cutting the number of hungry people on the planet in half by 2015. Representatives from 185 countries and the European Community agreed to establish universal food security—the access of all people at all times to sufficient, high-quality, safe food.

To reach that goal, an average rate of 20 million people per year would need to be freed from hunger. So far, the rate of success has hovered in the area of 8 million. But another meeting in Rome on November 5–9, 2001, will ask representatives to present ideas and plans for accelerating the process.

Global affirmations and goals

At The Rome World Food Summit in 1996, nations affirmed that world hunger could be eradicated—even if it would take time to do so.

Out of those discussions came several specific conclusions. Here are a few:

• Eradicating poverty is essential to improve access to food.

• A peaceful and stable political environment in every country is fundamental.

• Finding enough food for all is doable.

• The impact of harmful climactic fluctuations can be reduced.

• Reaching sustainable world food security is part and parcel of achieving social, economic, and human development objectives.

Food aid: women a key

More And More relief agencies, including the United Nations' World Food Programme, are focusing on the role of women in solving the world's hunger problems. Women and their children are the principal victims of hunger and poverty. In wars, droughts, and other disasters, nearly three out of every four victims is a woman or child.

But women also have power to make a difference. For one thing, women control food in the majority of households, and thus can make the best use of food aid. Also, they are chiefly responsible for cultivating the land. Eight out of 10 farmers in Africa and 6 out of 10 in Asia are women. In addition, studies have shown that they are more likely than men to spend aid money on feeding their families instead of on alcohol or cigarettes.

That's why the United Nations, among other organizations, is targeting women with a sizeable amount of its assistance. By giving more food aid to women, enabling them to gain income, and improving their literacy, the lives of whole families are improved, findings indicate.

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Hunger at home and abroad

May 21, 2001

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