Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.

Why did 20,000 Starve Yesterday?

by Chris Kulczycki Sun Nov 20th, 2005 at 10:54:58 PM EST

Today's diary is a little different. It's a list of simple statistics and facts. Draw your own conclusions.

Number of people that starve each day: 20,000 (from The Hunger Project)

1.2 billion suffer from obesity (GlobalIssues.org)

Number of people suffering from malnutrition to the point where their health, productivity and life expectancy are impaired: 852 million (UN Food and Agriculture Organization)

In the US, 40 to 50 percent of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten. (GlobalIssues.org)

Estimated cost to feed all the world's hungry and give them basic health care: $13 billion above current expenditure. (UN Development Program 1998)

Total estimated cost of Iraq war: about $700 billion (Institute for Policy Studies)

More below.


Estimated cost to provide clean water and sanitation for all who don't have it: $9 billion above current expenditure. (UN Development Program 1998)

US military spending for 2005: $277 billion (CIA World Fact Book)

Number of people living on less than $2 per day: 1.4 billion (International Labor Office)

The cost of the Iraq war so far broken down per person in the United States: $727 (Institute for Policy Studies)

Number of children dying from hunger every year: 5 million (UN Food and Agriculture Agency)

Cost of contracts awarded to Halliburton: over $10 billion (Institute for Policy Studies)

Maximum amount of a Kiva micro-loan provided to a businessperson in Uganda: $500 (Kiva)
Amount Halliburton failed to account for feeding and housing troops: $1.8 billion (Institute for Policy Studies)

17.8% of children under 18 in the US live in poverty (U.S. Bureau of the Census).

The Iraq War is the most expensive military effort in the last 60 years. (Institute for Policy Studies)

The $204.4 billion appropriated thus far for the war in Iraq could have purchased any of the following desperately needed services in our country: 46,458,805 uninsured people receiving health care or 3,545,016 elementary school teachers or 27,093,473 Head Start places for children or 1,841,833 affordable housing units or 24,072 new elementary schools or 39,665,748 scholarships for university students or 3,204,265 port container inspectors. (Institute for Policy Studies)

20 million people have died from AIDS since 1981. There are the 12 million AIDS orphans in Africa. (The Day)

Necessary resources to slow down or stop HIV/AIDS: $55 billion over the next three years (UN)

US intelligence budget over three years: about $120 billion (UPI)

Deaths from malaria each year: 1.3 million (Wikipedia)

Amount needed for malaria treatment, prevention, and research: 1 billion per year (Malaria Foundation International)

Cost of one Virginia class attack submarine: 2.6 Billion (Wikipedia)

Poverty is twice as prevalent as 20 years ago on the [African] continent, and 300 million people live with less than a dollar a day. (Paul Wolfowitz, via Jerome a Paris)

Exxon's third quarter profit was $9.92 billion (International Herald Tribune).

If you were fortunate enough to be born in an industrialized country, your chance of living to age 5 are 99.3 percent. However if you were born in one of the least developed countries, your chance of dying before the age of 5 soars to as much as 31.6 percent! (National Association for the Prevention of Starvation)

The total wealth of the top 8.3 million people around the world "rose 8.2 percent to $30.8 trillion in 2004, giving them control of nearly a quarter of the world's financial assets." In other words, about 0.13% of the world's population controlled 25% of the world's assets in 2004. (GlobalIssues.org)

Display:
In the US, 40 to 50 percent of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten. (GlobalIssues.org)

This is a good counterpoint against GM food. In a few weeks the Swiss have to vote again on GM farming. One of the main pro-arguments used is that it would help feed the hungry. I think that is nonsense, we do not need more GM but better infrastructers so the hungry can be reached and more local farming. It is also nonsense shipping/flying the food around the world to rich consumers while the local people go hungry.

by Fran on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 01:57:22 AM EST
Amartya Sen in Development as Freedom points out that famines have happened in countries with no food shortages. The reason? Lack of freedom and accountability and impediments to information flow prevent authoritarian governments from noticing there is hunger. In today's world hunger is as likely to be a political as an aconomic condition.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 03:48:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I believe that Genetically Modified products can still be very benificial to poor countries. If there is, for example, a type of grain that can better resist drought, or brings a higher harvest despite harsher conditions, I would think these countries would want to start using that one, instead of the less productive grains. I think that GM products could boost productivity and morale in the countries, stimulating their micro-economy and generally lift them up to a higher standard.

I view it like this: you've the necessary foods (like fruit, diary, grain or rice) and the extra foods, those which are not necessary to survive but which are nice to have.

Although I find the statistics horrifying and think it's outrageous that a quarter of the population is starving and another quarter is obese, I think that transporting the surplus of necessary foods to starving countries won't do much to help the basic problem that there's too little food produced. In fact, the people would start to rely on the flux of foods from other countries. I'd rather stimulate that the countries with starving populations become self-sustainable when it comes to necessary foods.

To solve the problem structurally, I propose exactly the same as you did: better infrastructure and local farming. I view that as the key solution, but not for the aim of transporting foods; I'd combine local farming with GM products. Too many African countries have made it an art to use the western countries as a financial milk-cow; I do not favour any type of action which would stimulate that behaviour.

Turning around on my own argument, I hate local farming as it will eradicate the last vestiges of the nomadic tribes. I know farming is necessary to feed the modern day population, but that will be the consequence. The Masai and all the others will die out as a people.

by Nomad (Bjinse) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 06:50:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I do not believe that even GM crops can resist serious droughts. However, for there rest there are ways to deal with framing problems that need no or very little chemistry and no GM - which in my estimate serve mainly the big companies who own the patents.

For me there are still to many question marks about GM. Just because there has not yet been any direct connection to sickness, does not mean that it does not cause problems, it just means the connection has not yet been found. Genectics is still a very young science and we still know way to little how it really works, though we do a know a lot more than 20 years ago.

BioVision has very interesting projects in Africa which show that there are other and healthier solutions.

by Fran on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 08:13:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Interesting link. Looks like the kind of foundation that has my support: small-scale, innovative leap-frogging, from man-to-man aid.

Serious droughts: I agree that for natural disasters it won't be a cure. However, I'd argue that if more countries are self-sustainable the impact could likely be decreased and aid would not need to come from overseas.

I'll not argue that GM is the end-all and be-all solution; I consider it just another drop to tip the scale a little further to the positive side. However, the scares about GM are made larger than they in reality are; the tests before large-scale production are quite rigid. The patents, though, are a very annoying obstacle to actual implementation and right now do more harm than help.

by Nomad (Bjinse) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 09:54:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I actually agree with you on the other points. Interesting thought on the Masai. I consider one of the problems of today's politics to be that we want to apply just one cure all to all people. I am sure there could be a variety of solutions, if we were open enough, that could integrate the lifestyle of the nomadic tribes. However that would demand thinking outside the box for many politicians and I guess also agri-business and this is were I am not to hopeful.
by Fran on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 08:48:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
... integrate the nomadic tribes within the nature reserves (which should then be made larger and preferably connected by nature highways).

There are immeasurable crooks and nannies to this solution, one of them that many of the current nomadic tribes historically used to call the shots and now are pushed more and more into an outcast position. Divides between tribes and clans are far from buried. Politicians (generally non-nomadic) abuse the nomadic tribes in their turn and there is a growing disconnect between the city-politicians and the tribes.

Actually, politics in Africa can be so depressing, I have my first hopes on commercial nature-reserves, which would abuse the "novelty" of nomadic tribes for a part, but would (hopefully) allow the majority of the tribe alone to their own lifestyle.

by Nomad (Bjinse) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 10:06:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]
is that a typo, or sarcasm?

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 10:21:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Consider it a very Freudian slip! This one passed through the spellchecker, so I never noticed and during proof-reading it escaped me, too.

Then again, I always hustle words on purpose, so this could be the first sign I'm mentally disintegrating.

Well spotted.

by Nomad (Bjinse) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 10:25:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]
From the thrust of your argument I couldn't tell, really...

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 10:40:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I am actually doing a research study on disaster, trauma and sports...and one author I discovered made an important point: while we are aware of the major disasters that occur (earthquakes, hurricanes, etc), how can anyone say that the starvation of any children in the world today is not a disaster (even though it is not a "discrete event" like most events. This is truly tragic that this is a problem in our world today...

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia
by whataboutbob on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 04:23:38 AM EST
Please post any interesting facts or statistics you've see.

Do not feel safe. The poet remembers.
Czeslaw Milosz
by Chris Kulczycki on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 06:58:56 AM EST
The statistic that haunts me:

In lands without electricity, the average lifespan is 43 years.

When I think of how much we prosperous nations waste in the way of energy....

Thanks for this excellent diary, Chris.

by Plan9 on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 04:57:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]
While there are lots of things we can do about this (mostly structural- i don't really believe in the lasting effect of aid) we shouldn't forget that most of the african leaders are corrupt as hell.

But that's an chicken-and-egg question, of course. We should tear down most tariff walls for food from africa. It's the only way they'll develop into economies that can take care of their own. Problem is that we don't want corrupt dictators benefitting from it!

Aaaah this issue is so difficult. But something needs to be done.

by koenzel (koen@vanschie.net) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 08:30:37 AM EST
I think there is enough evidence that you can't have a functioning democracy without a modicum of economic prosperity. Corruption is a weak excuse to withhold aid and/or maintain trade barriers. Help these countries develop a middle class and you'll see how quickly the dictators go away.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 08:45:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It's tough to convince the public to give dictators and such a break that will come (partially) from their wallet- people usually look no further than their own wallet.

Though i agree with you, I hesitate when It think about giving countries like Zimbabwe a break... or other gay-bashing rulers in Africa. Even though trade is too blunt a instrument to spread human rights, it doensn't feel right to help such people.

And some of the new money will go into the pockets of the old corrupt elite, which will try to sustain it's position- i reckon by war. And there's been enough of that in Africa for the last 15 years.  

by koenzel (koen@vanschie.net) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 11:04:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm not talking so much about charitable donations as about lifting economic sanctions and allowing trade.

The same people who want to boycott certain African countries rightly point out the human costs of the UN sanction regime on Iraq in the 1990's.

Strangulating the people is not the way to weaken an authoritarian regime. You need to strengthen the people, and the regime will only be weakened by exchange with the outside world.

You don't have to treat Mugabe like a democrat, just don't institute policies that will make the Zimbabwean people more dependent on handouts from his government.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 11:15:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You've got a good point, the problem is that many 'bad' countries won't allow direct aid to their inhabitants because they see that it would destroy their position. And i talked about trade, even though it would benefit us all, it will take away some jobs and might lead to less taxes.

The question how to help the inhabitants of countries run by dictators is extremely difficult. When I look at Zimbabwe, I would almost favor regime-change. Almost.

by koenzel (koen@vanschie.net) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 02:34:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
... you mean armed, international intervention?

Well, I already crossed that line with Mugabe. I'd welcome intervention. The only reason that 5 million people haven't died is because emigrants in South Africa uphold them with food and money fluxes. And then there are the damn Chineses... Good grief, this subject makes me angry.

by Nomad (Bjinse) on Mon Nov 21st, 2005 at 05:06:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]


Display:
Go to: [ European Tribune Homepage : Top of page : Top of comments ]