Where in the world does hunger exist right now? What are some things that lead to hunger around the world? Are people from developed countries giving money to the ongoing efforts to help people? In this article, I will try to answer these questions in the hopes that morally responsible people will do what they can to help end this unseen suffering by learning more about the current state of world hunger.
Everyone knows that there is enough food in the world to feed all of the people who live there. One out of every seven people in the world still has to deal with hunger and malnutrition. Or, from a slightly different statistical point of view, there are 4,712,200,000 people in the world right now. There are 797,900,000 people who don't get enough food. So, 17 percent of the world's people are malnourished or starving right now. No matter how you look at the situation, there is a crisis right now. What's going on?
There are many reasons why people go hungry, but there are some things that seem to be linked to this problem. Poverty is the main reason why people go hungry. If you want to solve the problem of world hunger, you have to solve the problem of world poverty first. So, the question we should be asking is what causes people to be poor. This article doesn't have enough space to talk in depth about what causes poverty around the world. There have even been whole textbooks written about it. For our discussion, it's enough to say that one of the main reasons people are poor is that governments have policies that make it hard for people to be self-sufficient.
Hunger-stricken areas also have trouble growing food because they don't have enough seeds, arable land, or tools. Those who can grow food have to deal with pests, drought, floods, and war, all of which can destroy crops completely. In the past, some parts of Africa have been overrun by locusts, which can completely destroy crops.
The globalised system of food production is also a cause of world hunger. The globalised food production and trade system favours relying on crops for export at the expense of small-scale farmers and crops for eating. Many countries in the third world export too much food and don't keep enough food to feed their own people.
AIDS is a big reason why people go hungry. Famine kills more people and is harder to stop in places where AIDS is common. What's going on? People who are the most useful to society are the ones who get AIDS. When there are fewer productive people in a society, there are fewer people to do jobs that involve making food. This is one reason why so many people in Africa are starving right now.
The weather plays a big role in how often people go hungry. When there is drought, the land can't be used, which leads to famine. Everyone knows this. But less people know that floods can also cause people to go hungry. Crops can be ruined by flooding, which is basically the same as drought in terms of the end result. In both cases, the weather can make it impossible to take care of yourself.
Hunger can be caused by both internal wars and wars between countries that are close to each other. Crops can be destroyed because of these fights. People who are starving are paying for the war with money from the government. Money is taken away from social and economic growth. Large groups of people can also be forced to leave their farms and their way of life because of military conflicts. People can end up in refugee camps, where they have to rely on aid from outside sources.
There are many things that cause world hunger, and some of them change from year to year. This means that at any given time, some places may be more likely to be hungry than others. Over time, the severity of droughts, floods, internal wars, and wars with neighbouring countries can change. So, these factors have a variable effect on how much people in countries that are vulnerable to starvation suffer from it.
When all of these causes come together in one place, it's a recipe for disaster. When this happens, it can cause a lot of people to go hungry. A good example. There has been a lot of drought and fighting inside the Horn of Africa. This is making it more likely that a tragedy will happen. Right now, 11 million people in this area are close to starvation.
In the past, there has been a lot of hunger and starvation in some parts of the world. The central part of South America, large parts of East, Central, and Southern Africa, and parts of South Asia are some of these places. As of 2006, these are the places where people are starving the most:
Niger:
Drought and swarms of locusts have caused a lot of damage in this part of central Africa, and people are having a hard time getting by.
Haiti:
In this area, a political crisis, floods, tropical storms, and hurricanes have made the situation even worse.
Africa's Horn:
A severe drought and war have put about 11 million people in the Horn of Africa "on the edge of starvation." Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, and Ethiopia need help with food, water, seeds, and new livestock. There are a lot of hungry people in the developing world.
Afghanistan:
Afghanistan's hunger problem is made worse by their poverty, which has been made worse by the drought.
Pakistan:
Because of the recent earthquake and the harsh winter, people are going hungry. Recently, mud slides have hampered relief efforts.
The North Korean government:
Food insecurity is made worse by the fact that the country's economic problems are making it hard to get food. So far, the North Korean government has not done what it should to feed its people. The government of North Korea has actually turned down help from other countries.
Columbia:
A 40-year civil war and the illegal drug trade have caused a lot of people to leave their homes and live in poverty.
Congo, Democratic Republic of:
Because of a continuing internal conflict, 3.4 million people have been forced to move within their own country.
Mali:
They are having a hard time getting by because of the terrible effects of a recent drought.
The south of Africa:
Starvation has been made worse by things like bad weather, a lack of seeds and fertiliser, constant poverty, and AIDS.
These are the places in the world where malnutrition and hunger are the worst right now. Now that we know where help is needed, we need to talk about what we can do as individuals. Are people in developed countries giving money to help those in need? Most people who care about doing the right thing donate to relief efforts when they hear about a problem.
The fact that most people in developed countries don't know about the hunger crisis is a big problem for the relief effort. The problem of hunger around the world isn't getting enough attention from the news, especially from TV news. Even though this article doesn't have enough space to go into detail about why this is, a few points can be made.
Since people go hungry every day, it seems like American TV news outlets don't think world hunger is a big deal. I think that from these news organisations' points of view, 24,000 people dying of hunger every day is not a big enough story. When 1,386 people died because of Hurricane Katrina, there was a huge amount of news coverage. Five months after Katrina hit New Orleans, TV news stations were still trying to get as much out of this story as they could. Even though this was a clear tragedy, a much bigger tragedy is happening in Africa, and most people don't even know about it.
I haven't seen much or any news on American TV about the terrible hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa, where millions of people are going hungry. Only through RSS feeds on the Internet did I find out about this crisis. CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC, which are all TV news stations, haven't talked about this crisis yet. Hopefully this will change.
It's clear that American TV news stations don't really give full and complete news. Instead, they watch what's going on and only report what they think their viewers might find interesting. News organisations should report the news and uphold high standards of journalism at the same time. Maybe these news organisations need to make their decisions about which stories to cover with a higher level of moral obligation in mind. No matter what, people can't help if they don't know there is a problem.
We've answered some important questions to get a sense of how the world hunger situation is right now. We've looked at where hunger is most common in the world right now, and we've looked at some of the things that cause malnutrition, hunger, and starvation. We've come to the conclusion that most morally responsible people would help end hunger if they knew about the problem. Lastly, we've seen that TV news shows don't talk about world hunger nearly as much as they should.
Even though TV news hasn't been talking about the current world hunger crisis, you know how bad it is after reading this article. If you are reading this on a computer with Internet access, which is likely because you live in a developed country, you have a moral obligation to give either time or money to help end suffering that you can't see. "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give," Winston Churchill once said. Everyone must do their part to end hunger in the world.
