Linked to Sustainable Development Goal 2: Hunger
The next topic in this blog is about hunger. As a nutrition and dietetics student, this is a very important aspect in aid and development to me. Hunger, malnutrition and feminine are still very big worldwide issues . It is estimated that there're around 720 to 811 million people in the world that are in chronic hunger. In total, 2.37 billion people live with some form of food insecurity. Globally in 2020, 149 million children under 5 were estimated to be stunted (too short for age), 45 million were estimated to be wasted (too thin for height), and 38.9 million were overweight or obese. Around 45% of deaths among children under 5 years of age are linked to undernutrition (WHO). From my expertise I know that a poor nutritional status of a child, has enormous negative consequences (also on development in general). I found an article about Madagaskar.
Sand storms ruin crops and drought worsens food shortages, mothers are walking miles to feed their children at clinics. For example Vokasoa Origin, a 24 year old mother, is walking 17 km overnight to reach a mobile clinic in Elomaka village, to collect emergency supplements for her seven year old girl Bakoly. She needs to do this twice a month, to save her child. Her family's harvest has been destroyed by the worst drought ever seen in 40 years.
Unicef estimates that 500.000 children under the age of five will be acutely malnourished this year and about 110.000 children will be severely malnourished. The situation in Madagascar is so worse, that young infants do not even know how to eat. Because there is so little food available, infants haven't learned the skills and reflexes to consume food.
But not only drought is a problem in Madagascar, also days of rain can bring a lot of problems. Madagascar's rainforest has been cut off, which leads to soil degradation and worse. Also dust and sandstorms, that destroy everything, occur often in Madagascar. But, development aid has given Madagaskar a helping hand. They invested in access to water, higher quality seeds (new well and drought resistant crops), and protection of the farmlands (with natural bushes). The area is nowadays much greener and people can survive in their ancestral land.
What I think is admirable about this article, is that it mentions the positive effects of developing aid upon their lives. But there are two cases I have my doubts about.
The first thing I find questionable, is about the higher quality seeds. Can they from now on produce these high quality seeds by themselves? Or are they still dependent on aid to get these kinds of seeds? What I have learned from class is that this is the main obstacle in development aid. Providing materials or equipment can be very helpful, but at the end of the day they need to be able to stand on their own feet.
The second occurrence I think is questionable, is about cutting the rainforest with all the negative effects it brings. These events, also called resource depletion, often happen in favor of wealthier countries. They benefit from ecological deficits through trade and consumption. This can be the cause of environmental breakdowns and depletion from natural resources. This might have caused the environmental conflicts in Madagaskar. And the local people have to deal with the consequences.
Despite the fact that I totally agree with providing aid in developing countries, I also think it is important to look at these two sides of aid and development as well.
To summarize; as you can see here the nutritional status and therefore hunger, can be influenced by so many environmental events. Drought, rain, wind, sand storms and so on.
The message I think needs to be addressed is the fact that environmental catastrophes are going to occur much more frequently in the future due to climate change. Therefore people need to be aware about the global consequences of climate change and help where they can.
What do you think is the next step looking at hunger? Should we focus more on providing supplements or supporting new technologies for agriculture? Is a combination of this possible within development aid?
A similar article that I recommend:
‘We pray for rain’: Ethiopia faces catastrophic hunger as cattle perish in severe drought
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