Preface

The struggle to end world hunger has long been a subject of international attention and discourse. In 1948 the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enumerated, among other inalienable rights, the right to food. More than half a century later, in 2000, the United Nations again focused on hunger in its Millennium Declaration, which listed eight goals that UN member nations hoped to achieve by 2015. Chief among these objectives is cutting in half the number of people around the world who suffer from hunger.

Chronic hunger afflicts approximately 820 million people worldwide, killing 25,000 people every day, one child every eight seconds. While Asia has the largest number of people who are undernourished, the problem is most severe in Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. In Asia and the Pacific region, 525 million people suffer from chronic hunger—17 percent of a total population of 3 billion. But conditions there are slowly improving. In sub-Saharan Africa, one out of every three people is undernourished, and the situation is unlikely to improve in the near future.

World hunger is such a difficult problem to address because so many equally intractable dilemmas contribute to it. Natural disaster, war, disease, lack of education, repressive gender roles, and political corruption all play a part in perpetuating the cycle. While it is perhaps universally accepted that hunger and famine must be counteracted, no consensus has yet emerged as to how best to do so. Compounding the problem is the considerable financial investment that any proposed solution would require. As the drive to end hunger stagnates, relief agencies fear that citizens of developed nations are becoming increasingly desensitized to famine’s toll. Paradoxically, the more hunger there is in the world, the more normal—and less urgent—famines seem. However, given the increasingly globalized and technologically advanced state of the world, the problem of hunger is all the more abnormal and all the more urgent today.

This book examines the complex scientific, economic, political, and sociological aspects of world hunger by looking at the varied causes of famine—as well as their potential solutions. The articles in this book also give examples of famine’s many different manifestations around the world. Selections in the first chapter, “The Slow and Silent Killer: What Causes Famine?” offer a theoretical overview of the various factors that contribute to famine, explaining each within the larger context of world hunger. Focusing on Niger, Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and North Korea, articles in the next chapter, “Famines in the World Today,” discuss the specific causes and effects of some of the most severe food shortages in recent years.

The third chapter, “Relief Efforts: Aid Versus Development,” features entries that explore the difficulties relief agencies and governments face in providing immediate famine relief as well as their struggle to transition toward working on long-term development. While women and children are famine’s principal and most visible victims, they are also envisioned as emerging leaders in the fight to end hunger, as selections in the next chapter, “Women and Children: Greatest Victims, Greatest Hope,” demonstrate.

The controversial idea of biotechnology has recently entered the discussion about hunger. The science behind genetically modified crops and the arguments for and against them are explained in articles in the fifth chapter, “Promising Solution or Risky Experiment: The Biotechnology Debate.” Finally, entries in the last chapter of the book, “Food Stamps and Farm Subsidies: Hunger in America,” look at hunger in the United States, one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations in the world, where approximately 37 million people nonetheless do not have food security.

The appendix contains the text of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, which was adopted by the General Assembly in September 2000. The Declaration delineates the eight Millennium Development Goals, which include not only the aforementioned objective of halving world hunger by 2015, but also related goals concerning education, disease prevention, and empowerment of women.

I would like to thank the writers and publishers who have granted permission to reprint their work. In addition, I would especially like to thank Lynn Messina, Rich Stein, and Paul McCaffrey for their invaluable assistance.

Claire Stanford
October 2007