Planet in Peril: An Atlas of Current Threats to People and the Environment

Planet in peril The fight against hunger

More than 20 million children with low birth weight are born every year in developing countries. The subse- quent growth of one child in three is hindered by chronic malnutrition. The damage inflicted is considered irreversible. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organi- sation “the number of food emergen- cies has been rising over the past two decades, from an average of 15 per year during the 1980s to more than 30 per year since the turn of the millennium. Most of this increase has taken place in Africa, where the average number of food emergencies each year has almost tripled.” Drought is the main natural cause. Ready access to water increases yields andmakes it easier for people to secure a proper food supply. Irrigated farm land, which represents 17% of the total area under cultivation, produces 40% of all food. Other factors, such

as flooding, frost or locusts also come into play. But human factors (conflicts, movement of population, economic decisions) are increasingly involved, causing more than 35% of food emer- gencies in 2004, compared with only 15% in 1992. As the FAO explains: “In many cases, natural and human- induced factors reinforce each other. Such complex crises tend to be the most severe and prolonged. Between 1986 and 2004, 18 countries were ‘in crisis’ more than half of the time. War or economic and social disruptions caused or compounded the crises in all 18.” In economic terms the free mar- ket policies imposed by the Interna- tional Monetary Fund and the World Bank, with the consent of local lea- ders, are responsible for a large part of the increase in food insecurity. In particular they demanded an end to subsidies on essential foodstuffs. As

In 2000 there were 852 million undernourished people on Earth. Over the last five years their number has increased every year by about 4 million. Without a radical change of course we will not achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (of reducing by half the proportion of people suffering from hunger by 2015). The reasons for this failure are all too familiar.

Overweight North, rickety South

PACIFIC OCEAN

INDIAN OCEAN

PACIFIC OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

10 20 30 40 50 % Countries or areas not covered by study

Most of the data is more recent than 1995. Based on a map by the Centre for International Earth Science Information Network (C IESIN), Columbia University. Sources: United Nations Children´s Fund (UNICEF); Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS); National reports on human development; African Nutrition Database Initiative (ANDI).

30 I L’A TLAS DU M ONDE DIPLOMATIQUE