Hunger is far from being History

On Tuesday Niger marked its 50 years of independence from France - but there is little or no reason to celebrate. Instead of fireworks, monuments, public holidays or parties, half of Niger's 13.5 million people are facing famine.

Niger has the dubious distinction of being known as the poorest country on the planet. Right now it is on the cusp of a famine. In the aidocratic world of humanitarian action people can get quiet hysterical about terminology: is Niger 'food insecure', is it suffering from food shortages, drought or famine. It is categorically facing famine and it is estimated that 1.5 million children are currently at real risk of death from starvation.

Why is it that despite all the awareness, despite the grand political ambition to rid the planet of hunger, despite billions being pumped into food aid and hunger alleviation programs - why is it that more than 35 years after the momentous World Food Summit (Rome, 1974) when Kissinger famously proclaimed a veritable war on famine and promised “that within a decade no child will go to bed hungry” - why is it hunger is a daily reality for a cool billion people? The fact is we have collectively failed to tackle hunger. We are - to our eternal shame - worse of now than we were in 1974.

I want to post a video here of Saray Amadaou, a mother of ten children, who struggles to keep the wolves of starvation from her door by feeding her family from grains scraped from the dry earth. The Disasters Emergency Committee in the UK posted the video on their Facebook page and it sparked some interesting debate. "Why", one lady asked, "Why do you have 10 children and if the Red Cross helps you, will you see this as the opportunity to have more children?". Others offered their opinion explaining that large families were actually coping mechanisms because of hunger and high infant mortality. Nevertheless, the fatigue, the frustration, the futility with seemingly never-ending food crisis is palpable (and understandable).



What do you think? Should the Red Cross Red Crescent and other aid organizations practice 'laissez faire' knowing that millions would die a horrible death or do we continue to provide 'emergency rations' keeping people barely alive as we seek out the magic 'sustainable solutions' formula and battle against a host of external factors such as currency fluctuations, bio fuels, epidemics, desertification, trade, conflict or weather and climate related disasters?

And, hunger, despite what we might think, is not solely an African problem. The situation is arguably worse in Asia. In Pakistan, hunger is now a direct consequence of the horrific floods that have decimated the region. Wheat prices have doubled this year and are set to rise another 30% before the year is out - food riots are again surfacing in North Africa and the Americas.

Global hunger is a reality.  Making hunger history is still a lofty ideal. Why are we so far from making hunger history?

/PC

Worst Places in the World to be a Mother

Save the Children is an organization HDEO has encountered in many contexts and forums over the years and it remains an NGO for which we have respect in every aspect. Their advocacy work in recent years has really taken on an important momentum and we would like to highlight their most recent report, focusing on maternal health which basically looks at the worst places in the world to be a mother and proposes solutions to remedy this situation. 

I find it horrifying for instance, that one in seven women in Niger is likely to die while pregnant or in childbirth (compare this to one woman out of 47'600 in my own country). One of the main pillars in the much-lauded Millennium Development Goals (or MDG's) is precisely on the area of maternal health - the deadline to 'bridge the divide' and ensure equality for all women and children is fast approaching in 2015. With organizations like 'Save' I hope we can move at least in the right direction. A mother and child (who barely recovered from near-fatal malnutrition) in Mauratania. Most women in sub-Saharan Africa give birth with no skilled health worker present. (IRIN photo)

Eight of the bottom 10 countries as ranked in Save the Children’s annual Mother's Index, which ranks the best and worst places to be a mother, are in sub-Saharan Africa, says the NGO. 

Afghanistan, Niger, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Sudan, Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea form the bottom 10; while Norway, Australia, Iceland and Sweden come top. 

One in seven women dies in pregnancy or childbirth in Niger and one in eight in Afghanistan and Sierra Leone; while the risk is one in 25,000 in Greece and one in 47,600 in Ireland. 

“The problems around maternal and newborn health have been raised for many years, but there still remains so much to be done,” says Houleyemata Diarra, Save the Children’s regional adviser for Africa. “There are not enough skilled attendants at births, and governments are not taking into account where health workers are needed - in communities.” 

Over half of deliveries take place at home in most sub-Saharan African countries, with no skilled birth attendant present, according to the UN Children’s Fund. 

Save the Children is calling on governments and donors to prioritize building up a workforce of female health workers to serve in their communities and local clinics. 

These workers should be incentivized with better training, pay, and support for career growth, says the NGO. 

It costs a lot to train a doctor or run a hospital, but the cost of giving community health workers basic training - to diagnose and treat common early childhood illnesses, organize vaccinations and promote good nutrition and newborn care - does not have to be exorbitant. 

In Bangladesh the NGO found that providing female community health-workers with six weeks of hands-on training and some formal education caused infant mortality rates in affected areas to drop by a third. 

“There are a lot of models of this working well around the world,” said Save the Children’s Diarra. “African countries need to follow these examples.” 

/PC with thanks to IRINNEWS.ORG