Aid agencies are calling the deepening world hunger situation the “Silent Tsunami”. A number of factors have combined to reverse the trend that had seen more and more people no longer suffering hunger each year. Now hunger is increasing.
Here are a few articles:
A SILENT tsunami of hunger is engulfing the world, afflicting nearly a billion people in 60 countries and killing 25,000 men, women and children every day. The global food crisis, triggered by high prices, shortages and bad weather, is deepening as the world’s economy moves into recession. Millions more people are now facing poverty, starvation, disease and death.
Countries struggling to slow increase in child hunger
Hunger is now the biggest threat to child development across the world, with global progress on eradicating malnutrition slowing, stalling, or sliding into reverse in some countries. But a new international index from Save the Children also reveals that some poor countries are making greater progress in reducing child deprivation.
Child malnutrition in Zimbabwe increasing as emergency aid pipeline falters
Acute child malnutrition in parts of Zimbabwe has increased by almost two thirds compared with last year, according to Save the Children.
Alertnet Food and Hunger Topic Index
Enough food is produced globally to feed the planet but even so roughly 923 million people go to bed hungry every night. Hunger is a leading cause of death, killing an estimated 9 million people every year – more than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined
Hunger’s Global Hotspots: 24 December 2008
The Challenge of Hunger 2008 Global Hunger Index
WFP Food Reaches War-torn Corner of Eastern Congo
Famine Early Warning Systems Network
Alertnet FACTSHEET: Hunger, the world’s silent killer
LONDON (AlertNet)- While acute food emergencies such as those in Niger in 2005 and Ethiopia in 1984 grab headlines, galvanising the public and donors to respond, most people who die of hunger worldwide do so out of the media spotlight.
At the end of the above article is a very telling quote: “If reporters from Mars visited earth don’t you think that their lead story would be: ‘One in six humans go hungry’? And yet that never makes headline news.” British news presenter Jon Snow
Alertnet FAMINE RESOURCE FILE: The reality of hunger
QUIZ: Five myths about famine and hunger
TALKING POINT: The global food aid controversy
Many aid professionals think food aid should be a last resort, arguing in favour of giving cash or vouchers to hungry people instead. They say food aid can disrupt local markets and make it harder for people to recover from a crisis.
People who subscribe to this view say hunger rarely exists because there’s no food in the area – it’s just that the food is too expensive for people to buy during a crisis.
Meanwhile, aid workers often argue that the current food aid system puts the interests of donor countries above the needs of hungry people.
More than 210 million people do not have enough to eat in Africa. The reasons for this are varied and complex. The causes of malnutrition in one country might be quite different in the next. Even regions within individual countries can be subject to variations in politics, climate, society or economy that can affect the prevalence of hunger in quite different ways.
Decades of progress wiped out’ as hunger spreads
The food and financial crises have wiped out nearly 30 years of progress on reducing hunger, warns ActionAid, reacting to new figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization, which show that the number of hungry rose to 963 million in 2008.
