Hunger is in most cases caused by high poverty levels in society. As a result of high levels of poverty in society, individuals are subjected to low feeding levels and in most cases, individuals feed on an unbalanced diet resulting into malnutrition. Most common cases of malnutrition are found in undeveloped countries where poverty rates are high as a result of inability of their government to fully provide for the society’s basic needs. The shortages of food in most undeveloped countries result into hunger and incases where the situation is not addressed promptly, death is always the result. In this paper, I will discuss on the topic of hunger basing it on undeveloped countries’ inability to provide enough food to meet the peoples’ need for food. Therefore the main topic of discussion will be hunger in undeveloped countries and the extent to which foreign aid helps in combating the hunger.
Introduction
In most developing countries, hunger is rated as one of the causes of death with very high mortality rates among children of five years and below. It should be noted the hunger occurs in a vicious cycle therefore eliminating it is quite difficult and hence call for international help. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, it is estimated that approximately 162 million people are living below half a dollar in a day. This represents 16% of the total hunger present in developing nations. To make matters worse, the global increase in prices of food stuffs has really worsened the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa where only few people have access to nutritious food. As a result of increased deaths caused by malnutrition and hunger in general, developing nations’ governments have resorted to foreign aid to supplement in the provision of food (Hoddinott, et al 2008).
The provision of aid especially by World Vision and World Food Program under the umbrella of the United Nation has really helped in alleviating hunger in developing countries and reducing the number of deaths caused as a result of malnutrition. However, the provision of aid by developed countries to developing countries has always come with strings attached therefore limiting the sovereignty of nations receiving these aids. As a matter of fact, the provision of these aids has always interfered with a country’s policies since one of the requirements of receiving aids is to comply with the demands of the donors which always contradicts a nation’s policies.
Provision of aid to reduce hunger in developing countries
The provision of food aid to developing countries especially in Sub-Saharan Africa has greatly reduced the number of people who die as a result of hunger. Further still, the provision of food has enabled many children to be able to attend school, it has also created food security in those countries and empowered people to devise means and methods of securing food in their countries. For instance, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has been on the forefront in advocating for more food relieves in countries faced with hunger. In the year 2006-2007, CIDA contributed in providing food to more than 78 countries to alleviate the hunger in those countries. In that process, more than 87 million people are estimated to have benefited from that program. In trying to fight hunger, CIDA not only provides food aid but also initiates long term programs that enhance permanent food security in developing countries (Hoddinott, et al.).
For instance, vulnerable people have always benefited from CIDA through the soft loans provided to start small businesses for example; in 2006 Afghanistan women were given capital for business. In Tanzania and Senegal, individuals have benefited in form of education enhanced by CIDA that has reduced the illiteracy levels and increased chances of getting employment which has helped in reducing poverty. In other countries, access to clean water has been enhanced by CIDA thus reducing deaths caused by water related diseases such as diarrhea.
According to UNICEF statistics, children are the most victims of hunger and therefore would greatly benefit from food aid provided. According to UNICEF reports, hunger and poverty deny children the right to grow thus affecting their education, health and nutrition, survival, and creating a damaging environment for the appropriate growth of children. As a result, provision of aid to help these children would lead to good nutrition, good education, excellent sanitation, and sustainable environment that are necessary for the growth of children (Australian Agency for International Development).
Disadvantages of aids in alleviating hunger
The main limitation to aids is that in most cases, the aids are provided with strings attached to them. For instance, a country can be told that they would be provided with aid with a condition that they comply with certain conditions such as retrenchment of public servants, cancellation of trade with certain countries or complying with new rules that would be imposed on them. This as a matter of fact interferes with a country’s own policies especially trade policies thus limiting a county’s sovereignty. Therefore, a country’s policies would be based on the provisions of the donor country. Despite foreign aid saving a lot of lives in developing countries, it has the disadvantage that it is addictive in nature and a country would always rely on foreign aid rather than devising methods of ending the hunger. Therefore, this leads to what is referred to as dependency syndrome among the developing countries with most of them relying on foreign aid. This has encouraged laziness that has further precipitated the hunger and poverty problems in those countries (Australian Agency for International Development).
Thirdly, foreign aid can serve as a disincentive to other farmers who are able to produce agricultural commodities in some regions. As a result of the foreign aid, foods become available for free to most citizens in the country and thus force farmers who had planted to undergo losses by selling their produce at low prices. This acts as a disincentive to production and can easily discourage farming if the situation continues and in the long run, there would be more poverty and hunger leading to more deaths. Lastly, foreign aids encourage corruption in the public service in developing countries. It should be noted that the responsibility to distribute the aid is usually bestowed to the government and a due to the inefficiency in most developing countries in managing resources, corruption usually emerges. This is a situation where government officials deliberately divert the aid for their own use especially for business purposes. A case in point is Kenya where a lot of maize is alleged to have been diverted into business use this year at the expense of hunger stricken citizens. To make matters worse, the government had pronounced hunger a national disaster in early February thereby calling for international assistance which when awarded was misused by the government officials in the ministry of Agriculture. This explains how developing country engages in corruption using foreign aid at the expense of poverty stricken citizens (Hoddinott, et al.).
Conclusion
Based on the above observation, it is inevitable for developing to fully survive minus the food aid. Though the provision of the food aid limits the sovereignty of a country in making some of its decision, the loose is less compared to the loss of human life that would have been caused by hunger or malnutrition. The value of human life is more important than any other interest a government may have and therefore, it is appropriated to assert that the provision of food aid to the needy developing counties has really assisted in saving human lives. Looking at the number of people that would benefit from these aids especially children, it is appropriate to enhance these aids till the time when developing countries would be in a capacity to fully support their citizens. An interesting aspect of this assignment is that I have realized that there is need for more genuine aids to developing countries to fully combat the poverty levels which results into hunger and malnutrition. The poverty levels especially in Sub-Saharan Africa are so high that people survive on less than one dollar day resulting in a lot of hunger and malnutrition (Hoddinott, et al.).
In my opinion, I would suggest that the developed countries through the United Nations should adopt a more permanent method of addressing the poverty and hunger situations in developing countries rather than just providing aids. Permanent methods that should be incorporated include providing agricultural inputs to farmers, providing soft loans for businesses, and extending non refundable loans to these countries to fight poverty.
References
Australian Agency for International Development: Review of AusAid’s Food Aid.
Hoddinott, John, Cohen, Marc J. and Barrett, Christopher B. (2008). Renegotiating the Food Aid Convention: Background, Context, and Issues Global Governance, Forthcoming.