Poverty and Hunger

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Poverty and Economic Development

This MDG concerns itself with 'Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger'. Extreme poverty is a state in which families living below the poverty line have to spend as much as half of the family income for a minimal level of food and shelter.

Internationally, the one dollar a day indicator has been fixed as the indicator of poverty; it indicates the purchasing power of the people. This international poverty which takes into account the purchasing power parity (PPP) is required mainly to allow comparisons across countries and to produce estimates of poverty at an aggregate level.

Most countries also set their own poverty lines which are estimated by converting the one dollar a day indicator to local currency using the latest purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates for consumption taken from World Bank estimates.

The Millennium Project commissioned by the United Nations Secretary-General Mr. Kofi Anan in 2002, has been entrusted with the tasks of developing a concrete action plan for the world to reverse the grinding poverty, hunger and disease affecting billions of people. Under this Project, 10 Task Forces have set up, one of which is the 'Task Force on Poverty and Economic Development'. The mandate of this Task Force is to develop an operational framework of action for meeting MDG Target 1, "Halve between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day." In addition, the Task Force is also developing operational strategies to meet the following MDG Targets:

MDG Target 13, "Address the Special Needs of the Least Developed Countries",
MDG Target 14, "Address the Special Needs of landlocked countries and small island developing States", and
MDG Target 15, "Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term", and
MDG Target 16, "In co-operation with developing countries, develop and implement strategies for decent and productive work for youth".

The Task Force on Poverty plays a special role in the context of the 10 Task Forces, in that it has focused on identifying the economic conditions for success in meeting the MDGs. This includes five components:

Identifying the regions in most peril of not achieving the MDGs;
Describing the basic dynamics of poverty reduction, including both income and non-income poverty;
Describing factors that can trap countries in poverty;
Describing basic policy priorities that need to be pursued in order to break out of poverty traps and achieve the MDGs; and
Proposing an operational framework through which the national-level MDG plans can be systematically pursued with the necessary degree of international cooperation and support

The Task Force on Poverty is yet to submit its findings and report. Meanwhile, the following data gives an idea about how the situation has improved but differently across the regions.

¡ Between 1990 and 2001 the percentage of the population living on less than $1 a day fell significantly in East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and North Africa. The percentage remained stagnant in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, and it increased in West Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

In 2001 poverty rates were highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, at 46 percent of the population, and in South Asia, at 31 percent.

Similarly, the Task Force on Hunger The Task Force on Hunger which traveled the world to observe and discuss precisely what is being done to fight hunger and how solutions that are succeeding can be used in regions that are still struggling. Their report mentions that, “The Millennium Development Goal of cutting hunger in half by 2015 can be met if industrialized countries increase and improve their development assistance,” the report said. “Halving hunger is well within our means. What has been lacking is action to implement and scale up known solutions.”

The Hunger Task Force developed a wide variety of recommendations which each country, region or community can select the right mix of interventions best suited to its needs and circumstances. It has crafted 40 specific, proven solutions (www.unmillenniumproject.org) for fighting hunger and a plan for implementing them at international, national and community levels. Africa was given specific emphasis, as it is the only region in the world where malnutrition is rising. The recommendations include:

Move from political commitment to action through increased advocacy, increased resources, greater public awareness, and increased monitoring and awareness.
Reform policies and create an enabling environment, through strategies such as an integrated policy covering agriculture, nutrition and rural development, increased budgetary support, empowering women and girls, increased access to land, strengthening research, removing barriers to trade and developing capacity to implement programmes to reduce hunger.
Increase agricultural productivity of poor farmers who struggle to produce even enough food for subsistence by improving soil health, water management methods, seeds and livestock, and agricultural extension services.
Improve nutrition for chronically hungry vulnerable groups through proven nutrition programmes focused on pregnant and nursing mothers, infants, young children and adolescents, and by supporting programmes that reduce vitamin and mineral deficiencies and infectious diseases that contribute to malnutrition.
Reduce vulnerability of the acutely hungry through productive safety nets. Techniques include preparing for food crises in advance through early warning and emergency response systems and the development of social safety nets.
Make markets work for the poor to boost incomes for those who struggle to pay for food. Strategies include investing in market-related infrastructure, developing networks of small rura input traders, improving access to financial services and market information for the poor, strengthening community associations and promoting alternative sources of income.
Restore and conserve the natural resources essential for food security. Interventions include helping communities to restore natural resources, securing local access, ownership, and management rights to forests, fisheries and rangelands, developing natural resource-based “green enterprises”, and paying poor rural communities for environmental services. This blueprint for action on hunger is crucial to meeting commitments forged in 2000 at the Millennium.

Despite of all the efforts being made, hunger is still high in several regions of the world, and is even rising in a few. A third of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa and 27 percent of the population in Oceania and CIS countries in Asia are undernourished. Undernourishment is rising in West Asia and CIS Asia. And though malnutrition rates are falling on average in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, they are rising in some African countries.