This is the seventh and final post in a series considering the root causes of hunger. The Millennium Development Goals serve as a helpful framework.

Millennium Development Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

Because everyone lives on a single planet and participates in a global economy, poor countries and hungry people can’t solve their problems alone, and shouldn’t have to. There are too many ways the problems and solutions are connected to – and in some cases caused by – the rest of the world. Much of Goal 8 has to do with issues of  debt, trade, and aid, and all countries have a role in implementing changes that will give developing countries a better chance at success. Honestly, I’m feeling like I should have an advanced degree in economics to do this topic justice. Since I don’t, I’ll treat it briefly, point to other sources of information, and welcome your comments!

Debt

The debt crisis facing many developing countries is severe. Governments owe billions of dollars of debt to developed countries, and they have no way of paying it. With widespread poverty and insufficient economic output, some indebted governments do not generate even the funds to pay the interest (which is substantial). With so much of their limited money going to developed countries in debt payment, developing countries have little left over for infrastructure like roads and sanitation, or economic development policies like job creation plans and education. That such large amounts of money were loaned in the first place is the fault of both borrowers and lenders, and sometimes go back decades to corrupt regimes that no longer exist. The situation today is that many countries are facing debilitating debt that they have no way of paying and which ensures their continued national poverty. The solution includes working with developed nations on policies of debt relief and cancellation.  Jubilee is an organization doing lots of work on this front, and I recommend checking out their website if you’re interested in learning more.

Trade

Trade is another area where global partnerships between developed and developing nations is needed. Exporting goods is one way developing nations can generate more income. However, there are many barriers to their doing so successfully. First, many developed countries protect their own markets and citizens through tariffs and subsidies. Tariffs on imports increase the purchase cost of foreign goods and therefore make them less desirable than cheaper, domestic goods. The result for the developing country is that, while their production costs may be the same or less, few people in developed nations will buy their products because the final price is higher than competing products. Subsidies are another trade barrier, and agricultural subsidies are especially problematic. American farmers receive government payments for some crops, which encourages them to overproduce.  With lots of, say, wheat available, the price drops. Since American farmers get paid more than the market price through subsidies, low wheat prices aren’t much of a problem for them. But low prices and lots of wheat mean that others in the world who are growing wheat without payments from their governments can’t compete with our low prices. Not only can they not sell it to other countries, they may not even be able to see it in their own. In this example, individuals certainly won’t make a living as wheat farmers, and the country won’t make money as a wheat exporter.

So, some would say, don’t grow wheat. Make and export something else the world needs. That can work, but for a country to move into new or different industries, they need things like investment money, skilled employees, marketing knowledge, and infrastructure. If the country is already poor (and spending much of their GDP in interest on their debt), funding this type development isn’t realistic. Providing assistance for trade development and reducing trade barriers are ways wealthy countries concerned about poverty can and should help developing  countries gain entry into the global economy. Developing countries, in turn, have a role in creating governmental structures and financial policies that encourage and sustain investment and assistance.

The issues surrounding global trade and its effects on developing nations are complex. A few starting places for more information include the One Campaign website’s overview of “the issues,” Bread for the World Institute’s 2009 Hunger Report titled, “Global Development: Charting a New Course, and Paul Collier’s book titled, The Bottom Billion.

Aid

Obviously, the partnership of wealthy countries is required to funnel enough aid money to developing nations to make a difference with things like economic development. But Goal 8 goes beyond sending money. It considers other assets of the developed world and how to more equally distribute them. Of particular interest is developed countries’ possession of technology, especially in the area of computers, and pharmaceuticals. As the developed world continues to advance in these areas, its people live longer and become more sophisticated, educated, and competitive in global markets. Meanwhile, the developing world continues to suffer with preventable and treatable diseases, and lacks the benefits that mobile phone, computers, the Internet, and other technology provides. To end poverty and hunger, the partnership of developed nations must incorporate these less traditional forms of aid.

More information about pharmaceutical assistance, telecommunications, and actually all of Goal 8 – as well as the other MDGs – is available at this UN website.

Conclusion

I started this series of posts by saying that the reasons world hunger exists are complex and interrelated. While that’s very true, the upside is that it also means there are many points of entry and leverage in making a difference. ELCA World Hunger is committed to taking a comprehensive view of the problem of world hunger and tackling it from many directions, including relief, development, education, and advocacy. We hope you’ll join our efforts. To make a donation and/or learn more about how to get involved with ELCA World Hunger, please visit our website at www.elca.org/hunger.

-Nancy Michaelis

This is the sixth post in a series considering the root causes of hunger. The Millennium Development Goals serve as a helpful framework.

Millennium Development Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability

How carefully we manage our natural resources and environment has a direct impact on hunger, especially through issues of employment and health. Here are a few examples:

If we remove fish from our oceans, lakes, and rivers faster than they can reproduce, catches get smaller. As catches get smaller, fisherman make less money and eventually may be driven out of the job altogether. With less income and/or uncertain employment, it is harder to buy food and other necessities. In addition, as we deplete one or more species of fish, it can change the whole ecosystem in that location, affecting additional industries, animals, and people.

When we cut down too many trees too quickly, it exposes soil to erosion. Some of the soil washes away in the rain, causing silting in waterways. Some of it is picked up by wind and carried to other places. In Beijing this month, the sky was orange with dirt. Soil in the air led to a level-five pollution warning, the highest level, with people advised to wear masks and stay indoors. Those with respiratory illnesses were at especially high risk, and people suffering from illness have a difficult time making it to work. In the meantime, where there used to be trees, top soil is lost and root systems no longer hold water, making the land drier, less nutrient-rich, and less able to grow things (like food).

How much garbage did you throw away today? Where will it go? In addition to removing natural resources from the environment, we add many unnatural ones back in. The chemicals. metals, and minerals in our discarded products find their way into the soil and water, which find their way into what we eat and drink. Those who live in poverty and hunger are most vulnerable, as they have fewer resources for acquiring healthier options, and less power to prevent contaminants from being dumped near their homes.

These are just a few examples and a few of the impacts. If you’re interested in learning more, here are some suggestions for additional information that I particularly appreciated:
– The Story of Stuff – a video about consumption and its effects on the environment.
– Collapse, by Jared Diamond – a book that looks at how and why civilizations have caused significant damage to their environments.
– The End of Food, by Paul Roberts – a book that considers how our food production systems affect the environment and us.
– Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman – a book that suggests not only how increasing populations and consumerism are a threat to the planet, but also some ideas about how it can be changed.

Do you have additional resources you’d recommend? Please leave a comment!

-Nancy Michaelis

A couple of weeks back I posed a question that had been raised by one of our hunger leaders on our social network site, The Table (love the new spring background, by the way!).  The gist of the question is why do we continue to struggle against what we all agree to be great evils, namely, hunger and poverty?  If we are all on the same page that the situation should not be as it is, why have we made so little progress?  I am still struggling with the question.

Today’s Op-Ed piece by David Brooks in the NYT spurred some thinking on the subject.  He writes about how as individuals in small social settings human beings are generally very sympathetic to one another.  This fits well with Peter Singer’s thinking on “The Life You Can Save” — human beings are more likely to respond to an immediate need or a particular person than to a large undefined problem (here is a link to my review of the book).  Once we move to larger group thinking, however, such empathy largely disappears.  Brooks writes,

When a group or a nation thinks about another group or nation, there doesn’t seem to be much natural sympathy, natural mimicry or a natural desire for attachment. It’s as if an entirely different part of the brain has been activated, utilizing a different mode of thinking.

This statement resonates with my experience.  Here’s what I think might be at work.  It makes sense evolutionarily for us to care for each other — particularly our young.  We need each other to survive.  For this reason, we are now essentially hardwired to care and we get great joy from doing good.  At the same time, we depend on the group to protect us and help us survive.  The group then becomes vital to our own personal survival and a threat to the group is a threat to our own safety.

I don’t pretend to have the answers (I know I struggle to consistently accompany those who are poor and vulnerable), but I do wonder how much a shift in group identity could begin to address some of our reticence to do good in the world.  What if we saw ourselves as part of the poor and marginalized group?  What if a threat to those who are vulnerable was perceived to be a threat to ourselves?  I hope to get back to this idea in another post.  For now, I’ll suggest that as the body of Christ, this may be the most natural identity for us to assume.

-David Creech

This is the fifth post in a series considering the root causes of hunger. The Millennium Development Goals serve as a helpful framework.

Millennium Development Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and other diseases

Are you familiar with guinea worm disease? It’s a parasitic worm that people get by drinking contaminated water. Here’s what happens to someone who has ingested guinea worm larva. The larva penetrates the stomach walls and grows into a worm as it moves about the body. After about a year, the person gets a painful blister that turns into an open sore. It can happen anywhere on the body, but is often on the legs. The sore can be accompanied by itching, burning, swelling, and fever. Then a full grown worm begins coming out of the sore. It can be up to 3 feet long (!!) and can emerge as little as an inch a day. It is painful and can take weeks to be rid of the whole thing. One of the only ways to relieve the pain (without pain medication, unavailable to many of the afflicted) is to soak the wound in water. This allows the worm to release more larva into the water supply and continue the cycle.

Oh. And you can have more than one worm emerging from different parts of your body at the same time.

I ask: how well would you be able to work or learn during the weeks or months it takes to get the worm(s) out? Would you be able to concentrate? Hold a job? Exercise? Cook meals? Care for your children? At best, a person’s productivity is slowed. At worst, the person is completely debilitated. And if you can’t work, you don’t make money or tend your garden or care for your family. If you can’t learn, you reduce your chances of getting the knowledge you need for a bright future. If a disease like this is afflicting several family or community members at the same time and serially, it can stunt a whole town.

According to the World Health Organization, there were some 50 million cases of guinea worm disease worldwide as recently as the 1950’s. Today, due to a major effort by the international community and affected countries to combat it, the number is under 100,000.  Tremendous progress, but this is just one disease, and many others take a similar toll on the ability of people to make a living, secure food, and end hunger.  What’s more, diseases like guinea worm, malaria, and HIV and AIDS affect the young, most productive workers in a community. In the case of AIDS, not only does productivity slow, but people in their prime working years die, leaving not only a weakened community, but orphans who need support from that community.

In places where people are already hungry and weakened, in places where they must expend inordinate time and energy just to stay alive, in places with minimal access to health care, disease can be the final blow. Helping people maintain their health is a critical component to ending hunger.

-Nancy Michaelis

This is the fourth post in a series considering the root causes of hunger. The Millennium Development Goals serve as a helpful framework.

Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5: Reduce Child Mortality; Improve Maternal Health

Hunger, maternal health, and child mortality form a vicious cycle. Bread for the World’s Frontline Issues in Nutrition Assistance: Hunger Report 2006 (Chapter 3, pg. 77) offers an illustration: A hungry woman is malnourished and lacks good health care. She hasn’t had enough to eat for a long time and is underweight. Now she becomes pregnant. Lacking sufficient food for herself, let alone a baby, she does not gain enough weight or take in enough nutrients for a healthy pregnancy. Between the demands of a growing fetus, insufficient health care, and hunger, her health is further strained. In a state of such physical weakness, her risk of dying during childbirth increases. If she survives, breastfeeding and caring for a baby will make further demands of her body and energy, requiring more food than usual – food that she still doesn’t have.

In the meantime, her baby, lacking adequate nutrition in the womb, is born weighing less than he should. He has a tough start to life. His immune system is weak, so he’s likely to get sick and may not make it to his fifth birthday. If he survives, his physical and mental development may be slowed or even impaired without adequate amounts of milk and food. Without adequately nutrition, as he grows into adolescence and adulthood, he is smaller, weaker, more susceptible to illness, and less productive than he would have been otherwise. This makes it more difficult to maintain employment and secure enough to eat. It is difficult to break out of the cycle of poverty. In the case of a baby girl, the cycle repeats itself with each pregnancy. Sadly, poor maternal health is both a cause and effect of hunger.

On the hopeful side, it is a cycle, which means it can be interrupted. Or even transformed. Appropriate food intake can turn the process from a viscious cycle into a virtuous one. With enough to eat, women are stronger, more able to meet the requirement of pregnancy, and more able to secure food and resources for themselves and their children. Their babies are born healthier, stonger, and more resistant to illness. With properly fueled development, these children grow into fully productive adults, increasing their capacity to maintain employment and feed their own families. Providing food can reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, and eventually, reduce hunger.

-Nancy Michaelis

This is the third post in a series considering the root causes of hunger. The Millennium Development Goals serve as a helpful framework, and this week, we’re looking at the rights of women.

Millennium Development Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women

In Malawi, Albeta Chilombo deposits income from her small business into the Kasungu Community Savings and Credit Cooperative, a bank supported by ELCA World Hunger.

The inequality women have faced throughout history is well known. What may be less well known is how much a society benefits when women share equal status and rights with men. Here are a few statistics from The Girl Effect website: 

• “When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has .2 fewer children.”
• “When girls and women can earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for men.” 
• “An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ future wages by 10 to 20 percent.”
• “An extra year of secondary school boosts girls’ future wages by 15 to 25 percent.”

This means that as educated girls grow up to lead productive and successful lives, every one around them tends to benefit from their success. They raise healthier and better educated children, enhancing the opportunities for future generations. In addition, educated women, if given the opportunity, are better able to participate in the workforce. This means both income for themselves AND increasing a country’s capacity for economic growth and poverty reduction. Ensuring access to education for girls and women is a critical first step toward empowering them, their children, and their communities.

Traditional laws related to property and assets also create impediments for women. Despite the fact that in many countries women are responsible for the majority of agricultural labor and household management, they often own none of the land, buildings, or businesses, and may have very little to say about how household assets are used. What’s more, they often have no ability to obtain credit. As a result, should they become widowed or abandoned by their husbands, women can be left with no money, no house, no land, and no way of growing food. Worse still, they may be ostracized by their communities, leaving them with no where to go. Yet they frequently retain responsibility for feeding and caring for their children. In such cases, women and their children have little hope of escaping poverty and hunger. Until women achieve the ability and right to support themselves, hunger and poverty are likely to persist.

-Nancy Michaelis

So I’ve been struggling lately to write anything worth reading (I hope this post will be an exception!).  It’ s not that there isn’t anything to write about–there’s the horrible tragedy unfolding in Haiti and the long road to recovery (for more on the ELCA’s response and how you can help, click here; a blog chronicling the ELCA’s response will be up and running soon here).  There was the very interesting piece by Nick Kristof on women and development and how religion can help or hinder efforts.  I just spent a week in Tijuana, Mexico, thinking about issues that confront women and children, with a dash of reflection on U.S. immigration policy.  Massachusetts recently held an election that significantly shifted the balance of power in Washington–in addition to potentially changing the contours of health care reform, the election also will likely impact climate change legislation, immigration policy, and economic reform.

So why the difficulty writing and reflecting on any one of these significant events and ideas?  I think it lies in the complexity of it all.  I like to offer pat answers and provide simple ways forward (like, for example, just give to support relief efforts in Haiti–not a bad idea).  But the realities of hunger and poverty are much more complex than that.  Hunger and poverty won’t go away with one simple step.  The way forward (hold on while I simplify it!) is a sustained effort that addresses the multiple causes of poverty (such as racism, sexism, war, corruption, and so on) through multiple channels (such as business, politics, and personal choices).  In that vein, I commend to you (if you’ve not yet seen them) the recent series of posts on this blog by Nancy Michaelis who writes about it with much more ease and eloquence.  The good news is that my colleagues at ELCA World Hunger and our partners in the field get it, even if I struggle from time to time to write about it.

-David Creech

This is the second post in a series considering the root causes of hunger. The Millenium Development Goals serve as a helpful framework, and this week, we’re looking at education.

Millenium Development Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education

In Cusco, Peru, an ELCA World Hunger-supported ministry called Huchuy Runa teaches kids about human rights.

It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of education in social and economic development. Both marginalized people in developed nations and many people in developing nations lack access to basic education. In a developed nation, lack of education can doom a person to a life of unskilled, low-paying work that makes it nearly impossible to avoid poverty. Minimum wage – or worse – just doesn’t buy a lot of food or shelter. In developing nations, where even primary education is often unavailable or inaccessible, the results range from continued impoverishment to death.

The need for universal primary education includes matters well beyond reading and writing. Knowledge of basic sanitation, hygiene, nutrition, and health are essential to improving people’s lives. For example, health education decreases maternal and infant mortality rates, and slows the rate of contagious diseases as people learn how illnesses spread and are able to improve their response to outbreaks. Healthy, energetic people are productive workers who will have better chances of economic success and reduced risk of hunger.

Literacy is another goal of universal primary education. Without the ability to read and write, people are more vulnerable to a life of poverty and hunger. Even marginally skilled work requires literacy. Without the ability to read pamphlets, packaging, or instructions, people miss opportunities to learn about resources available to them. Without the ability to read newspapers it is more difficult to participate in local political or developmental processes which might improve one’s economic situation. Literacy opens many avenues to improve lives, and widespread literacy opens new avenues for whole communities to pursue more ambitious opportunities together. Universal primary education is an essential tool for giving people the knowledge they need to lift themselves out of poverty and hunger.

-Nancy Michaelis

When you think of hunger, what images come to mind? A line of people waiting for a meal at a soup kitchen? A bony African child pounding grain near a cook-fire? A man standing in a dry, cracked field? Something else entirely?

When we see such images, we naturally want to help. One important way to do so is to provide desperately needed relief: food, water, shelter, etc. Such immediate assistance is critical. Another important way to help is to ask how we got here and what can we do about it. Why are so many people waiting for a hot meal? How much will the dangerously thin child get to eat after spending precious energy pounding grain? What happened to destroy the man’s field and what are his options now?

There are many contributors to hunger, and they often interact in complex ways. But addressing the root causes is critical to ending hunger. My posts over the next several weeks are adapted from something I wrote a few years ago. They will introduce some of the reasons that hunger is such a tenacious problem. This first post is the longest; thanks in advance for your patience!

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The Millennium Development Goals
In September of 2000, the 189 member states of the United Nations unanimously adopted eight goals that would, if accomplished, dramatically improve the lives of poor and hungry people throughout the world. To get 189 politicians to agree indicates the importance of these goals! Each one addresses an issue that affects hunger in the world. So for the purpose of this series of posts, the Millennium Development Goals provide a useful framework for considering many of the primary causes of world hunger.

 Millennium Development Goal 1:  Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

It doesn’t really get more direct than this! If someone pressed you against a wall and demanded to know the one cause of hunger, “poverty” would be an excellent answer. Obviously, people have to eat to live. So people with means will gladly buy or grow food. Meanwhile, people lacking means either can’t get food, or find that skipping food is a lesser problem than skipping something else – such as paying rent to retain shelter, paying for fuel to stay warm, or paying for child care to retain a job. In developed countries like the United States, where food is generally plentiful, hunger is frequently experienced as food insecurity. Food insecurity is “the limited or uncertain availability or ability to acquire safe, nutritious food in a socially acceptable way.” For people with inadequate income, food may be the necessity most easily skipped near the end of a pay period. That leaves people unsure how they will eat for a few days each month or periodically between jobs. In other words, they experience hunger. But as bad as it is, it could be worse. Because food is available in developed countries (there are farms, gardens, grocery stores, restaurants, etc.) and social support programs often exist, debilitating hunger and starvation are not widespread.

The same cannot be said everywhere. Poor individuals in many developing countries have it even worse. They suffer from chronic food insecurity, meaning they lack adequate food supplies not just periodically, but most of the time. Imagine this: you live in a developing country, you have very little income, and so you want a job. The thing is, there aren’t any. There’s very little infrastructure and even less industry. With almost no industry, no one is hiring and unemployment rates are very high. Besides, you are illiterate. The nearest school is miles from your village, and you were not able to go as a child. Your labor was needed on your family’s small farm. What’s more, you have periodic bouts of malaria that leave you bedridden and weak. There is no health clinic nearby or medicine to help. So even if there were jobs, you’d have a hard time getting or keeping one. When you’re well and strong enough, you still work on the farm, but the nutrients in the soil have been depleted and it produces less food each year, and you have no money to buy fertilizer. Or crop yields are low or fail altogether. Or stored food has run out and new crops are not yet ready for harvest. Most of your neighbors live under similar circumstances. All of these obstacles contribute to your poverty, and consequently, your hunger.

On an individual level, food may be unavailable or unaffordable. But widespread poverty is usually the result of systemic national problems.  On a national level, such issues as unstable or corrupt governments, insurmountable national debt, trade barriers, war, disease, insufficient infrastructure, and detrimental environmental practices all contribute to poverty and food availability with a country. (Several of these will be topics of later posts in this series.) In countries lacking the resources to address national problems, poverty and hunger persist. At both an individual and national level, hunger cannot be stopped without also addressing poverty.

-Nancy Michaelis

I’ve been thinking recently about how important it is to have a place to be. I mean this on several levels. The first is the smallest and most personal –  a physical house. A place to go to after work or school. Shelter versus homelessness. I’ve been thinking about this because I have a friend who has recently taken her child and left a destructive relationship. Thank goodness for that, but because she has been a stay-at-home mom, she doesn’t have a job or income, which is making the move difficult. Fortunately, she has supportive friends, a really great church community, and she is receiving child support. She’s got more options than many women in her position, but her situation is still tenuous. She managed to get a short-term lease on a small apartment, but has little money left over for food. She’s relying on friends and the food pantry to help out. She figures it’s easier to get help with food then shelter, and it seems to me that there’s great comfort in having a place to be.

A second level of having a place to be is in liking where you live, fitting in there, and having a sense of belonging. I’ve been thinking about this as a relative who was recently laid off considers having to move his family to wherever he can find a job. They don’t want to move. They are very connected to their current community. But ultimately, they have to have income. There’s a difference between having a place to be and having a place you want to be, and, I’d guess, a corresponding difference in the degree to which you thrive.

Which is not so different from some of what I heard in Mexico City a little over a month ago when I was there with the ELCA World Hunger Leadership Gathering. For all the controversy immigration causes in this country, it’s not exactly a first choice option for many immigrants, either. But like my laid-off relative, you go where you can make a living. My relative may have to change states, but at least he’ll still be in a familiar culture, he’ll be able to speak the language, and he’ll be able to provide food and shelter for his family legally. How much more difficult for the Mexican whose choices are living in poverty at home, or as an outlaw in the U.S.? Neither is a very good or fulfilling place to be.

And then there’s the Maldives. Anne Basye mentioned the country in her blog last week. They face the possibility of their entire country being submerged by rising sea levels due to climate change. Where can one bein that situation, when your country no longer exists? I read that their president is talking to other countries about buying land onto which they might relocate should theirs go under water. How does that work?! Do they just move the whole country? Do they become part of the country into which they move, or is, say, Australia willing to sell off part of it’s land so they can create a new Maldives? What happens when a whole country of people has no where in the world to legally be?

The causes of hunger and the interconnections of those causes is complex, and it seems to be that this question of where a person can be ties so many of them together. Employment, economics, land rights, land availability, governance, identity. No big insights here today; just respect for the complexity.

-Nancy Michaelis