Merriam and Webster dictionary defines hunger1 as “a craving or urgent need for food or specific nutrients, an uneasy sensation occasioned by the lack of food, or a weakened condition brought about by prolonged lack of food”. The term hunger is a universal term, at one point in our lives we may have had experienced hunger in one or its many forms. Hunger is closely related to poverty. According to the Hunger Project (2008), everyone knows what hunger means but everyone has a different interpretation of it. The Hunger Project further defines hunger according to its United Nation’s definition of income poverty and human poverty. Income poverty is poverty based on extremely low levels of monetary income (the World Bank defines this as those people living on less than US$1 per day) and studies indicate that about one billion people live with less than US$1 a day (that’s 40% of the world’s entire population). Africa has one of the largest concentrations of poverty and hunger in the world. About 41% of the entire African population live on an income of only US$1 per day. Human poverty on the other hand, is defined as deprivation on the material aspects of life (such as food, clothing, work, shelter) and the social aspects of life (employment, education, participation in social institutions, etc.).
Poverty and hunger are two interrelated issues. The Hunger Project points out that while not everyone is hungry, everyone that is hungry is poor. This therefore means that hunger is a manifestation of critical levels of poverty. In a global context, when there are wide and encompassing levels of food scarcity, we have an aggregation of hunger or World Hunger2. Malnutrition is one of the prevalent manifestations of hunger in that there is pronounced deficit of nutrients essential for human health.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO)’s report on the State of Food Insecurity in the World (2011) says that it is under nutrition that is the current issue, with about 925 million people categorically undernourished in 2010, which is attributable to decreasing agricultural performance, the on-going world economic crisis and the increase in food prices. Of that 925 million, about 338 million are in Africa.
In May 2012, ABC News reported that Africa is again suffering from hunger3. The report says that according to the United Nations, about 18 million people are suffering from drought-induced starvation of which 1.5 million are children. Furthermore, the article points out three organizations that are trying to help mitigate the crisis. These are “Save the Children” an international organization that provides “cash assistance” to affected families by giving them the capability to purchase what they need to address hunger (i.e. livestock), Oxfam an international organization that provides the same type of assistance, and the World Food Programme, which provides food aid to affected families in Africa.
An article by Shah (2007) defines food aid as generally the act of “providing food and related assistance to tackle hunger, either in emergency situations or to help with deeper, longer-term hunger alleviation and achieve food security”. Food aid is normally the flow of food and food stuff to areas stricken with hunger and famine although the evolution of Food Assistance Programs, or programs that mitigate food shortages have also become the main instruments for addressing world hunger. Food aid used to be about 20% of the world’s assistance outflow according to Shah (2007) but has now been reduced to only about 5%. The United States remains as the number one contributor of food aid to Africa with about 1.5 million tons of food aid in 2011, with other countries like Japan, Australia, China, Germany and the rest of the European Community chipping in. A copy of the five-year food aid contributions of these countries is shown in the annexed section of this report.
Food aid is a helpful yet problematic solution to world hunger. Shah (2007) quotes from Frederic Mousseau’s 2005 report on Food Aid to highlight the problems associated with food aid. The report indicates that the positive aspects of food aid are clearly outweighed by the negative and destructive effects. These are:
Food aid is a system that is driven by donor countries
Food aid is a system that promotes the interest of donor countries
Food aid is more of a foreign policy tool rather than an equitable redistribution of resources
Donations to international institutions that administer food aid are driven by exporters
Food aid does not necessarily promote development
Food aid, at its bare form is more destructive to the economy of the recipient country. In many instances, food aid is simply dumping of food to poor nations which results in the undercutting of local farmers. These local farmers lose out on food aid because food aid is heavily subsidized thus eating up the local demand. The result is the development of a new market for the products of farmers from the US and Europe and the oppressive recession of local farming economies.
The consequences of food aid are a well studied issue. In 2006, Barrett published a report on the intended and unintended consequences of Food Aid. In his report, he concludes that the intended and unintended consequences of providing food to poor countries with the publicly presented purpose of solving world hunger are complex and multi-layered. Food aid, according to Barrett, creates transfer and insurance effects from households to communities to nations. In households for example, food aid creates a false sense of “security” or “insurance” due to the availability of cheap food. In communities, this false sense of security creates moral hazards in that these communities (and countries in general) develop a dependency on food aid rather than develop the capacity to provide food for its own population.
This dependency on food aid becomes more destructive with the fact that food aid flows are generally unpredictable such that for one year food aid is received by one country, who does not receive food aid the following year. This then creates an erratic price and trade pattern in that country causing more hunger and poverty in the recipient country. A country that has wide spread hunger, which receives food aid would cease its programmed food supply actions abruptly but would be very slow to re activate its food supply programs once food aid is not received.
The agriculture and trade sector of the recipient nation becomes confused, disorganized and inefficient because farmers are displaced, land is underutilized, food consumption is slanted towards food aid, natural resource use is distorted, programmed safety nets are rendered ineffective, prices run away and become uncontrolled and general trade patterns disappear.
In recent years and because of all the criticism that food aid brings to donor countries, food aid has been relegated to emergency requirements (for instance hunger caused by drought or other natural causes). Food aid for emergency purposes has somewhat lesser detrimental effects that regular food aid (dumping) programs. However, it still is a political tool rather than a way of redistribution resources. In many instances, food is used as a “weapon” to gain associations and political advantages by the donor countries.
A study conducted by Awokuse (2006) entitled “Assessing the Impact of Food Aid on Recipient Countries: A Survey” stated that food aid allocation has changed significantly, with the shift in emphasis good from development (food aid’s original intention) to relief (for emergency purposes). However, his study was unable to provide conclusive evidence on the effectiveness of food aid both as a tool for development and as a method of addressing emergency situations. The survey conducted on the food aid recipients in 2006 did not lead to any conclusive findings due to the limitation of the data provided and the difference in quantitative methodologies available for analysis.
One of the most recent studies on food aid involved an even more dangerous preposition, that of causing civil wars. In a study conducted by Nunn and Qian in 2012 entitled Aiding Conflict: The Impact of U.S. Food Aid on Civil War, the report indicates that there is evidence that showed that on the average, food aid from the United States promotes civil conflict in recipient countries. Empirical evidence showed that when the US increases its food aid to a particular country (thus crowding out food aid from other countries), it creates armed conflict especially in countries where the transport network is under developed. Food received and transported gets stolen thus causing conflicts among neighbouring communities. In a larger scale, this escalates into civil conflicts that cause further harm to the populace.
In conclusion, various scholarly works on the effects of food aid indicate that while the intended purpose is noble, the varying effects, mainly due to the implementation of the aid and the conditions of the recipient nation causes varying effects that are less than desirable. This conclusion has led to a different tact, that of empowering local economies to feed themselves rather than wait for other countries to subsidize their food. There are many publicized approaches to this including the empowerment of small farmers (IFRI 2002), through development of small rural communities (World Watch Institute 2012), through youth action and education (Voices of Youth 2011), and through women empowerment (World Food Program 2012). While there is no one sure and clear cut solution to solving world hunger especially in Africa, one thing is clear, it will take more than just providing them fish for them to live. They need to be provided the capacity to fish for them to ensure that they can survive.
References
Awokuse, T. 2006. Assessing the Impact of Food Aid on Recipient Countries: A Survey. ESA Working Paper No. 06-11, Food and Agriculture Organization. Retrieved from ftp://ftp.fao.org/es/esa/esawp/ESAWP-06-11.pdf
Barrett, F. 2006. Food Aid’s Intended and Unintended Consequences. ESA Working Paper No. 06-05. Food and Agriculture Organization. Retrieved from ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/ag301e/ag301e00.pdf
International Food Policy Research Institute. 2002. Ending the Hunger in Africa, Only the Small Farmer Can Do It. Retrieved from http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/15914/1/mi02en01.pdf
Merriam-Webster.com. 2012. Hunger. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hunger Retrieved on October 23, 2012
Mousseau, F. 2005. Food Aid or Food Sovereignty? Ending World Hunger In Our Time. The Oakland Institute
Nunn, N. And Qian, N. 2012. Aiding Conflict: The Impact of U.S. Food Aid on Civil War. Retrieved from http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/nunn/files/Nunn_Qian_Food_Aid.pdf
Shah, A. 2007. Food Aid. Global Issues. Retrieved from http://www.globalissues.org/article/748/food-aid#Whatisfoodaid
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. 2010. The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2010 Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1683e/i1683e.pdf
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. 2011. The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2011 Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1683e/i1683e.pdf
Voices of Youth. 2011. How to Solve the Food Crisis in East Africa. Retrieved from http://www.voicesofyouth.org/posts/how-to-solve-the-food-crisis-in-east-africa
Weisfeld-Adams, E. and Andrzejewski, A., 2008. Hunger and Poverty: Definitions and Distinctions. The Hunger Project. Retrieved from http://www.thp.org/files/Hunger%20and%20Poverty.pdf
World Food Program. 2012. Empower Women on the Frontlines of Hunger. Retrieved from http://www.wfp.org/women4women
World Hunger.Org. 2012. 2012 World Hunger Facts and Statistics. World Hunger Education Service. Retrieved from http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm
World News with Dianne Sawyer. 2012. 'A Cry for Help': Hunger and Drought Crisis in West Africa. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/International/cry-hunger-drought-crisis-west-africa/story?id=16449341#.UIY5dY1lTjs
World Watch Institute. 2012. Ending Hunger in Africa. Retrieved from http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6527
