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An astonishing figure how’s that 6 million children under the age of five die every year of hunger or hunger related diseases. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations report of the State of Food Insecurity in the World in 2004, every six seconds a child dies because Of hunger and related causes. World hunger is occurring to 870 millions people in the world and 98 percent of them are in developing countries. Three-quarters of all hungry people live in rural areas, mainly in the villages of Asia and Africa.
The percentage of hungry people is highest in east, central and southern Africa. Around three- quarters of undernourished people live in low- income rural areas of developing countries. Of the total number of the 870 million chronically hungry people, over half are in Asia and the pacific and about a quarter are in Sub-Sahara Africa. Asia and the Pacific region is home to over half the world’s population and nearly two thirds of the world’s hungry people. 65 percent of the world’s hungry live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
The issue is not food shortage in the world, there is enough food available to deed the entire global population of 7 billion people. Although there is no issue in quantity terms, yet still one in seven people are hungry and one in three children are underweight. Natural disasters such as floods, tropical storms and droughts, are unpredictable and have devastating effects including hunger in developing countries. Drought is in fact, now the single most common cause of food shortages in the world.
Not only does natural disasters cause world hunger but to many peoples disbelief, war is a major reoccurring factor. In war, food sometimes can become a weapon. Soldiers ill starve opponents into submission by seizing or destroying food and livestock and systematically wrecking local markets. Governments over spending on military is connected to hunger. A disproportionate amount of government money goes to military purposes as opposed to agriculture, education, fishing and preservation of natural resources.
Economic factors are yet another cause for hunger, many developing countries face tremendous external debt that create hunger crises. This debt is largely the result of international trade imbalances and mainly affects developing countries in Latin American, Africa, and Asia. Governments must often decide between feeding people and paying off external debt. Recently, financial and economic crises have pushed more people into hunger. Can $1. 25 a day pay for three meals for one person? In poor countries around the world, more than 1. 4 billion people every, which is less than 1. 5 per day. Poor people in developing countries spend between 50% and of their incomes on food. Comparatively, the average American and European spends around 10%. It’s a matter of greed not scarcity. World Hunger impacts many people, one billion people to be more specific. This impacts one in seven people. Hunger is the world’s number one health risk. It kills more people ever year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. There are more hungry people in the world than the combined populations of the United States of America, Canada and the European union.
World hunger is not a small Issue, it is a huge problem which should not exist. This issue must be resolved in our life time, it’s the human races responsibility. Ensuring good nutrition is a matter of human rights but also a matter of international law. The right to proper nutrition is most emphatically reclaimed in the Nun’s 1 989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. Under the Convention, virtually every government in the world recognizes the right of all children to the highest attainable standard of health, specifically including the right to good nutrition.
There is no excuse for millions of people going to bed hungry, when for the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years. Hunger is the world’s greatest solvable problem, but without individuals involvement and support, we cannot defeat it. Due to the absence Of good governance in many countries, civil disorder, trial disasters and unrestrained population growth among other factors all contribute to the problem. The only way to solve hunger is by working together.
One person can’t solve the hunger problem alone. Solving world hunger requires people coming together from all career fields. Fighting hunger and malnutrition requires improving, roads, setting up clean water systems, getting politicians to make smart and informed policies and laws, producing healthy food and making sure people have sustainable access to food. There are numerous World Hunger Charities and organizations, which everyone can easily access. Christians should respond to global poverty and hunger with compassion.
Having true compassion for the needy, as modeled by Jesus, means we are aware of the need, we care about the people involved, and we are ready to act on their behalf. Also, Christians should respond to global poverty and hunger with action. Of course, prayer for those in need is something every Christian can do. Beyond that, Christians should do all they can to alleviate the suffering caused by global poverty and hunger. Jesus said, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.. . For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:33-34).