By Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, U.S. Ambassador, and Tony Hall, former Ambassador, UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture, Rome, Italy
As we celebrate Thanksgiving today, we ponder all the things we are thankful for: the joy our family brings us, our good health, the people we love, our jobs, and the wealth of food on the tables in front of us. It is a time when we Americans take a minute to consider our many privileges and opportunities.
In our country, when parents cannot feed their children, community and government programs will catch them. But this is not so for families facing hunger in far too many countries around the world.
Thanksgiving is also an occasion to stop for just a minute, and think of them as well.
As former and current U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture agencies -- the UN organizations that provide assistance to people suffering from hunger or under nutrition around the globe -- at Thanksgiving our thoughts swing to these poorer areas of the world. In particular, our thoughts turn to 13.3 million people in crisis in the Horn of Africa, where the worst drought in the last 60 years, coupled with severe instability, has caused a famine in areas of Somalia. Hundreds of thousands have fled their homes and crossed into neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia in search of food, water, and medicine. Millions are suffering from extreme hunger, and tens of thousands of children have already died from starvation and disease. What we saw there during recent visits will stay with us for a long time.
This should not have happened, not again, not in 2011.
We knew this drought would come. Warning systems have been in place in the region for decades -- monitoring rainfall, crop patterns, livestock, and undernutrition. Working with the Governments of Kenya and Ethiopia, UN agencies, and other donors, we were able to preposition food stocks and scale-up programs in the area, to provide life-saving aid to millions of people in need and lessen the impact of the crisis.
In Kenya and Ethiopia, our development investments have paid off, helping families cope with the effects of the drought and preventing a slide into famine.
But in Somalia, sadly, the situation is different. The terrible drought in areas of the country has been exacerbated by the actions of al-Shabaab, the terrorist group that continues to block access for relief organizations to vulnerable areas of Somalia, forcing more than a million to flee, and tens of thousands to starve.
A large-scale response to this emergency (and other emergencies around the world) has been underway for many months and is having a positive impact. The effort is international, it is multilateral, and it is coordinated by the United Nations.
As U.S. Ambassadors to the 'food' agencies we have observed and supported the work of the World Food Progamme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) almost from their inception. We are committed to supporting this critical work and coordinating with UN partners and other stakeholders through Feed the Future, President Obama's global hunger and food security initiative.
We have seen how WFP's globe-spanning logistics operations can bring nutritious, life-saving food relief anywhere in the world within hours, while laying the foundations for communities to become food producers again. We have seen how the FAO assists farmers and livestock herders, around the world obtain seeds to plant and livestock to raise, and improve their lives. We have seen how a $100 loan through IFAD's micro-credit program enabled an impoverished woman in Bangladesh to open a fish-farm, expand into poultry farming and send her children for higher education.
We must continue to provide emergency assistance where it is needed, but at the same time, and with equal commitment, develop the long-term food security of countries that still struggle with hunger. Agricultural development is key to the future of the planet as it faces a rapidly growing population which just reached 7 billion on October 31st, with changing needs and tastes that demand a 70% increase in food production by 2050. We must take what we call a "twin-track" approach to the problem of food insecurity in the world.
As a global community, we must all make sure that every country can produce the food it needs, that every mother has the means to feed her children, and that smallholder farmers, especially women, have the tools they need to better produce, store, and market what they grow. These values are at the core of Feed the Future; by alleviating hunger and the desperation it causes, we promote stability and security for all of us.
As we take that last bite of pumpkin pie tonight, let us take a minute to think about the importance of pursuing the goal of feeding those hungry children whose faces haunt us, but more importantly, to give them the tools they need to feed themselves in the future.
For more information about the crisis in the Horn of Africa, see:
United Nations World Food Programme: www.wfp.org
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: www.fao.org
The United States Mission to the UN Agencies in Rome: http://usunrome.usmission.gov/
International Fund for Agricultural Development: www.ifad.org
USAID> FWD: action.usaid.gov
Feed the Future: www.feedthefuture.gov
Miriam Furze: Delivering Light to Refugees in Ethiopia
This is a cold and harsh message. But Americans are good and decent people. And Americans have been donating to international food drives for decades. But there is a growing awareness of the futility of these donations because we did not properly define the problem. When efforts to solve a problem repeatedly fail (as have our donations of food), it's time to reassess our definition of the problem.
I'm going to get predictable responses about how cruel and violent political situations are aggravating the famines. Which they are. But violence is not the root cause of the famines. Violence is usually an effect of famines rather than the cause. When people are starving they will predictably and understandably resort to violence.
I will also get the predictable responses about how there is enough arable farmland in the world to feed everyone. But you need to take a higher view of resources, resources include more than simply arable farmland. There are not enough other resources (natural, economic, educational) for people in famine stricken countries to trade for food that has to be grown on the other side of the planet.
Humans will only survive if / when they learn to live within the limits of local sustainable resources. 8+ billion people ain't going to last much longer on this planet.
malnourished every single day of the year. Every year.
We should not wait for this pathetic glutenous feast that really celebrates the massacre of Native Americans to be reminded that there are people starving all over the world.
This article should be written every single day of the year.