Bread for the World plans to end world hunger

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End world hunger—with pocket change?
A penny won't buy you much these days, unless you're trying to feed the world that is. According to the Christian anti-hunger group Bread for the World, the United States could help cut world hunger in half by 2015 for just $1 billion a year—a penny a day from each American.

The United States and 193 other nations set that lofty goal at the 1996 U.N. World Food Summit in Rome. The summit agreement wasn't binding, but Bread for the World says the United States could make it happen.

"With a sustained international focus, it would be possible to cut world hunger in half by 2015," says Jonathan Lamy, a spokesperson for Bread for the World. If the United States allocates $1 billion a year, other industrial nations will likely contribute the additional $3 billion necessary, Lamy says.

Bread for the World officials think most of that money should go to Africa. "We have to start where hunger hits hardest," the organization's president, David Beckman, says.

According to the group's annual report on world hunger, 291 million people in sub-Saharan Africa—almost half the population—live on less than $1 a day, and a third of the region is undernourished. Over the last 30 years hunger has dropped dramatically in developing countries, but it has doubled in sub-Saharan Africa, Beckman says.

Bread for the World's research prompted Congressional action this spring. In April Reps. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) and Donald Payne (D-N.J.) introduced legislation calling for a "Decade of Concern for Africa" and a multi-year commitment to halve hunger in sub-Saharan Africa. The International Relations committee is considering the bill.

"Our plan is to generate a growing body of support for this resolution that Congressional budget writers cannot ignore," Beckman said when the bill was introduced. Yet the president's budget proposal and the House and Senate's preliminary versions do not reflect this commitment to hunger relief.

"Under current spending levels what the president asked for is actually $200 million less in humanitarian aid and debt relief than last year," Lamy says. The House and Senate agreement cut an extra $700 million in international affairs spending from the president's proposal, he adds. The agreement's allocation for international affairs amounts to only 1.2 percent of the 2002 federal budget; that includes money for military assistance to Israel, overseas peacekeeping, and drug war efforts in Colombia. To meet the 2015 deadline, the United States would need to include an additional $1 billion for foreign aid in this year's budget, Lamy says.

Bread for the World would like to see that funding concentrated on health care, education, agriculture, and small-scale loans, programs it considers especially effective because they are aimed at local groups. "These programs empower people at the local level to help themselves, so there's less opportunity for corruption," Lamy says.

A recent survey shows public support for these types of international aid programs is growing. According to the University of Maryland study, 87 percent of Americans favor food and medical assistance for poor countries. More than 8 in 10 said the United States should join an international effort to cut world hunger in half by 2015 and 75 percent said they'd pay $50 a year to support the initiative.—Anne Graber

For more info:
Bread for the World
1996 World Food Summit
Bread for the World's "Foreign Aid to End Hunger" annual report
Hunger to Harvest: A Decade of Concern for Africa
Lobby your representative for Hunger to Harvest
The president's budget proposal
Poll finds foreign aid climbing in popularity (from Salt of the Earth)

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