Editorials and op-eds

What should a billionaire give to save human lives--and what should you?  Peter Singer New York Times  December 17, 2006 (You will leave this site and be required to register [once] with the Times.)

Reflections on Pinochet's death Juan Antonio Montecino December 12, 2006

Inter-American Development Bank debt cancellation for Haiti--just another promise?   Debayani Kar and Tom Ricker December 7, 2006

DR Congo - Is it a miracle?  Mark Doyle BBC News  November 30, 2006 (You will leave this site.)

No Clear Victory for Left in Nicaragua  Alejandro Bendaña  November 29, 2006

The world needs its small farmers  Laura Carlsen IRC October 25, 2006

Still the rich world's viceroy.  If the IMF wants to reform itself, why not try democracy? George Monbriot  September 5, 2006 (Op ed. You will leave this site.)

The Debacle of Doha  Walden Bello  July 28, 2006

4 Ways To Spend $60 Billion Wisely  William Easterly Washington Post July 2, 2006 (You will leave this site and be required to register [once] with the Post.)

The Handouts That Feed Poverty  William Easterly  April 30, 2006

Bono's Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast  Bono February 2, 2006

Haiti, A Coup Regime, Human Rights Abuses and the Hidden Hand of Washington Ben Terrall February 12, 2006

Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

(November 30, 2006) My name is R.J. and my lifestyle is a lot different than some other people around the world.  I always eat dinner, lunch, and not always breakfast but that is a choice.  For other people there is not a choice for they don't have food to fill their stomachs.  I always have food to eat when I am hungry.  For others they will starve.  That concerns me because that is not fair for somebody to die because they can't get any food on their plate!

I have been hearing about hunger and I can't take it any more.  I want to do something to make a change to make a difference. My goal is to someday make some sort of way to help countries that do not have food.  Her is one of my ideas and it is to maybe have an amount of food to give to people who do not have any food once a month.  So that less people will stop dying from hunger.  I am not even a teenager but I want to make a difference.  Please could you help me by writing back to send info that will help me.  You would not only be helping me, but others around the world.

Dear R.J.

Thank you for your letter. If you want to do something about hungry people in the world there are a number of alternatives including learning more about hunger, taking political action to reduce hunger, contributing money and working with poor people. I enclose information from our web site on what people can do to reduce hunger. [See You Can Help Reduce Hunger and Learn More About Hunger.]

I am happy you are thinking about this issue. Best wishes for success in your efforts. 

Editor, Hunger Notes

Dear Hunger Notes,

(November 5, 2006) I am a Graphic Design student at the University of Idaho and I have a slightly unusual request.  My class was assigned to create an invitation to a corporate event with an emphasis on creative packaging.  I decided to create an invitation for a "Walkathon for World Hunger"; this event is fictional, but I was inspired by the recent food drives and a Hunger Banquet that took place on campus for world hunger.  I wanted to create a path of footprints that would go along with the phrase "to walk in another man's shoes".  I believe that this message would benefit from a more personal element.  Would you be able to recommend any literature or other media with a first hand account of what it's like to suffer from hunger?  I would be very grateful for any assistance that you might be able to provide.  Also, what is the best way to donate to this cause? Thank you very much!

H. C.

Dear H. C.,

Sorry for the delay in replying. The best description of suffering from hunger that I can think of is that provided by Tony Hall, a former Congressman from Dayton, Ohio who is  now ambassador to FAO and other food organizations in Rome, in his recent book, Changing the Face of Hunger, from about page 74 to page 89.  He undertook a fast to protest an action of Congress. He fasted from April 4 to April 26, 1993.  I reproduce some quotes here as you may not be able to get the book rapidly enough for your project.

Physically and psychologically, the first week of the fast was the hardest.  I was horribly hungry--I could say 'in agony" --and getting weaker by the day.  I thought constantly about what I would like to eat--that last meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and Caesar salad; some future meals with some of my favorite foods, such as steak, roast beef, and key lime pie....

Family mealtimes were the worst.  I couldn't go to the table because the food would be too tempting, and not being able to eat it would be agonizing.  Janet, Matt, and Jyl would try to hid from me when they snacked between meals..... I followed Dick Gregory's advice to fill up on water. I really poured it down. Since it was the only thing I was consuming, I paid a great deal more attention to it than I ever had before.  I really noticed the difference in taste when drank from the tap at home, the office, or someplace else.  My sense of smell also heightened throughout the fast.  I could tell what people had eaten because their bodies gave off aromas that I had never noticed before....

The hardest day of the fast came on Easter, which was my seventh day without eating.  Janet and I had gone on a retreat in Maryland with some friends, and our friends prepared a typical big American holiday dinner--turkey, potatoes, dressing, pie, cake.  It drove me nuts.  I had to leave them, go outside and take a walk, to get away from those wonderful aromas.  I decided that if I could get through this day, I would be over the hump.  I did, and I was.

Just as Dick Gregory said, the sensation of hunger faded in about a  week.  It's as if the body gives up on getting food and stops demanding it.  From then on, I could join my family at mealtimes and not be bothered a bit .  It was a revelation about the poor and the hungry, to whom I came to fee exceptionally close as the fast went on.  I now fully understood, in a way I never had before, as strange phenomenon I had witnessed during famines: starving children who refused to eat when food was finally offered to them.

The absence of hunger pangs did not mean I wasn't feeling the physical effects of the fast, however.  I'd wake up in the morning feeling fine. My head would be clear.  I would think I had lots of energy.  But after noon, I would fade.  The energy would desert me and weakness would take over.  I'd need to nap.  Then, when I woke from the nap, I'd feel like I couldn't get up because I was so tired.  Lacking the fuel of food, my body temperature apparently dropped, and I felt cold all the time.  It also seemed my brain slowed down in the afternoon; I felt "dull".  I thought of poor children who don't do well in school, who fall asleep in the afternoon, who become poor students because of poor nutrition.  Remarkably, some of my vital signs--blood pressure, the results of blood tests--actually improved.

[On April 26, Hall ended his fast.]  Because the fast had been a very public endeavor, I thought the breaking of it should be as well.  I invite some reporters to my office...and had a V-8.  I hadn't eaten for twenty-two days, and that thick, salty vegetable juice tasted exceptionally good...Unfortunately I could only sip a little bit.  Because my stomach had essentially been shut down for three weeks, I would have to coax it gradually back to use, maybe not being able to enjoy a full meal till the end of the week.  I had lost twenty-three pounds--dropping from a robust 180 to a gaunt 157....

With respect to contributing to reducing world hunger, organizations such as CARE, World Vision and Catholic Relief, as well as others have programs that feed hungry people. Good luck with your project!

Editor, Hunger Notes

Dear Hunger Notes,

(September 15, 2006) Our church is planning a world hunger awareness day in the beginning of November. I am looking for a video to show to elementary age school children to help them gain an understanding of the scope of the hunger problem. After searching the web, I am unable to find a video for this age group. Are you aware of videos which are available for elementary school children? C.C..

Dear C.C.,
In response to your question, I checked quite a few websites, including those of the World Food Program, World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization, Bread for the World, Feeding Minds Fighting Hunger, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Hunger Project, the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers elementary education site, and others, without finding a video on world hunger for elementary students. It is surprising that there is not one, but that appears to be the case. Sorry we could not be of more help. Editor, Hunger Notes
 

Dear Hunger Notes Editor:

(July 25, 2006) I greatly appreciated your correspondence a few months ago, but have not been able to follow it up until recently, when I went to your web site to sample your output and commentary on what is happening in the world food system. It was interesting, but no more encouraging that what I am reading regularly in the news from North and South. I found , particularly on point the brief April 30 essay by William Easterly about where all the foreign aid money went and how little well-financed gurus like Jeff Sachs have learned during five decades of what has become known as the Washington consensus..

I am not sure that I have any very helpful suggestions about what to do, beyond what you are already attempting, namely, to get people informed. Over the quarter of a century or so that I have been seized of these problems analyzing, meeting, testifying, fussing, networking, writing, etc. I have become ever more pessimistic about how the forces of progress can be engaged to bring about the kind of food security the FAO described at their 1996 World Food Summit: access by everyone to an adequate human diet through purchase or production. I am convinced that the global food system, like the rest of the globalizing economy, is increasingly dominated by those who make the rules, run the system, and obtain the profits.

In my view every segment of the food system is controlled by one of a set of quasi-cartels that dominate land ownership, provision of inputs (seeds, fertilizers, machinery, research), agricultural production, marketing, distribution, trade, nutrition, and food services. This is especially true of the last three: think of the power of a handful of fast-food restaurants on the quantity and quality of the food people eat; think of both obesity and malnutrition. Think also of a half-dozen supermarket chains, and even fewer international trading companies that strongly influence policy in many countries most notably in the United States. And the cartels interact, too; you don't need a conscious conspiracy when everyone already thinks alike. Watch as I am sure you will the preparations for the next U.S. farm bill.

I doubt that we will see genuine progress toward global food security until the power of these interlocking cartels is broken, or the mindset of their leaders is changed. Easier said than done. But there are literally thousands of organizations all over the world trying to change the present situation through education and//or the development of alternate or countervailing power structures. They are generally understaffed, overworked, and underfunded. If they move beyond relatively successful work at the margins, they may be crushed by the concentrated economic and political power of the dominant corporations and banks.

But it is only their educational and organizational activity that gives hope. And it seems to me that there is where World Hunger Education Service is. So, however pessimistic I may be, I wish you well, because that is where the hope is.

Martin McLaughlin

McLaughlin is the author, with Jim Conger, of World Food Security: A Catholic View of Food Policy in the New Millennium.

(May 4, 2006) Dear Editor,

I am an eighth grade student at Hermosa Middle School in Farmington, New Mexico. We are currently working on a research project, and I have elected to research the subject of World Hunger. I am writing to you to obtain information about this subject. I hope that you are able to respond and help me with my research project. I have 5 questions that I want to ask you and if you can please respond:

1. What do you do to help prevent World Hunger? How?
2. If you were president what would you be able to do to prevent what is happening?
3. What can we do help and how?
4. How did these countries end up like the way are?
5. What is the U.S. government doing to help?

I would appreciate any information you can send me. I appreciate your time and help. Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Brandon S.

Dear Brandon,

Thanks for asking some very interesting and important questions. My answers appear below.

1. What do you do to help prevent World Hunger? How?
3. What can we do to help and how?

The answers to these two questions are basically the same: try to understand why people in the world are poor and try to do something about it. My big effort in this is (together with others) to provide the Hunger Notes website, to help people in the United States understand why people are poor and hungry. But the answer is the same for all of us. We should try to learn why others are poor and hungry and then try to do something about it. This might be volunteering abroad, becoming a member of an organization like Bread for the World or Results that tries to take political action in the United States, or contributing money to organizations such as Oxfam America or CARE that address poor peoples concerns in developing countries.

4. How did these countries end up like the way are?
This is a complicated question, but my short answer would be that over the centuries-governments have only slowly evolved from oppressing people to being concerned--to some degree--for their welfare. Even with governments with some degree of concern for other than elite groups, such as the United States government, concern for the poorest is often far down on the list of government priorities and grudgingly given. The salary of members of Congress is more frequently raised than the minimum wage--and a lot bigger.

5. What is the government doing to help? 2. If you were president what would you be able to do to prevent what is happening?

The government allocates money to international institutions such as the World Bank and has two principal foreign aid agencies which also provide assistance, the United States Agency for International Development and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. United State foreign assistance, as it is called, has been a small and declining part of the U.S. government budget over the last 30 years. There has been a substantial increase recently but this has almost entirely been used to support reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and U.S. foreign assistance will diminish greatly once these two efforts are ended.

Conflict and the domination of some groups by others--which I believe is the major cause of hunger and poverty--has been going on for a long time so there is no overnight cure for ending this. Promoting democracy and opposing oppression is important. The United States foreign assistance program is doing many things right so there is no great dramatic shift that I think should be made. The plight of poor people should be made a much greater foreign policy priority. I also would try to increase foreign aid substantially, channel it more to national (as opposed to United States) organizations and give more emphasis to increasing agricultural production, especially of food crops.

I hope you do well on your research paper!

Editor, Hunger Notes
 

(January 15, 2006) I was wondering whether you had any information on how many people are undernourished in the world in each country?  Thanks, A.A.

For the most recent estimates of  how many people are undernourished in each country see the State of Food Insecurity in the World published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture publication. Editor, Hunger Notes

(January 15, 2006) I was reading your report about poverty "Harmful Economic Systems: the Major Barrier to Peoples' Welfare and Development" at the URL below and  found nothing on the influence of major institutions such as the IMF or World Bank in contributing to either reduction or increases in world poverty levels.  http://www.worldhunger.org/harmfuleconomicsystems.htm
My understanding is that neoliberal economic reforms usually "shock" an  underdeveloped nation's economy and frequently lead to inflation,  significant job losses, loss of control of major industries and resources  to multinational corporations. In effect, the loss of self-determination in economic affairs of developing nations. All of this while most  "development" contract monies go to connected multinational corporations rather than directly to improvements in infrastructure which would provide  jobs and new skills to working people in these nations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

Is there no connection between the economic polices of the large  international institutions and world poverty as your report would suggest,
or should this aspect be considered in your analysis?

Your report on reduced levels of international conflict is also an interesting analysis of long-term trends. http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/05/global/global_secuity_center.htm

Is there anything in that analysis of the impact of the US' "war on terror"  in determining the current level of conflict worldwide? A 2004 Lancet  article posits that as many as 150,000 Iraqi civilians may have died in the  US invasion of Iraq. It seems that numbers such as that would affect your conclusion of a reduced level of conflict worldwide. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_conflict_in_Iraq_since_2003

Do you have updates to your articles which include these aspects? I appreciate any additional information.

J.C. Kingston RI

Dear J.C.

Thanks for a thoughtful letter! With respect to our report entitled "Harmful Economic Systems." we are trying to give a basic understanding of these systems to the readers of Hunger Notes, in part to explain why Hunger Notes is running articles about various countries that may otherwise seem not to be connected.  There is a link between the economic policies of the large international institutions and world poverty.  It is not, in my opinion, as one-sidedly negative as your letter implies, though I believe that there are strong negative aspects.

With respect to your comments of the impact of the U.S. "war on terror" on conflict levels worldwide, it would appear that 2003 is the last year for the analysis contained in the article. We do not have updates to these articles.  Editor, Hunger Notes

Letters from the Editor

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