Eliminating World Hunger

In the year 2000 the United Nations held a conference form a program aimed at enhancing the advancement of underdeveloped nations. The product was the United Nations Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals. This global partnership consisted of eight goals ranging from the reduction of poverty and hunger to environmental sustainability, all with the key focus of increasing the quality of life of the world’s most disadvantage citizens. Although the United Nations had a deadline of meeting it’s goal of reduction and or elimination hunger by the year 2015, it has become abundantly clear that more time and resources are needed in the mission of achieving that goal and the others listed in the declaration. Eradicating world hunger within the next 30 years is a feasible goal, however, critical steps have to be taken to make impactful and sustainable change.

In many regions of the world, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, high levels of hunger are still prevalent. There has actually been an increase in hunger statistics in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade while the developed world has collectively experienced a decrease. Many factors are attributed to the lack of progress on this socio-political issue. The most common are the lack of good soil to produce food, natural disasters, and the surge in food prices. There have been several initiatives taken to reduce hunger but root of the problem has to be identified first before any legitimate change can occur.

According the Task Force on Hunger (a United Nations Publication) the proportion of individuals suffering from hunger globally has been reduced from 1/5 to 1/6 of the population. This decline has occurred over the past twenty years but doe...

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...nger is a systemic problem that extends beyond just donating money or even food supplies. A common thread that I’ve noticed throughout my personal, academic, and professional experiences has been the power of information. I believe that education truly is the great equalizer. The more informed people are, the more likely they are to make better decisions that will positively impact their future. By investing in educational programs, governments will decrease the probability of their citizens falling into the cycle of poverty which includes suffering from hunger. To solve the hunger issue the global community needs to examine all of the social ills that underdeveloped nations are afflicted with. Poverty, hunger, and illness are all problems that are interconnected. To make strides in even one of those arenas requires investment and progressive in all of those issues.