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 News from Around the Americas | November 2006 
Crusade Against Hunger in Latin America
 Odalys Troya Flores - Prensa Latina
| | In Guatemala, 23 percent of the children suffer from chronic hunger, a figure greater than Haiti’s 18 percent. |
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization has re-launched the “Latin America and the Caribbean without Hunger” initiative on the occasion of World Food Day.
The FAO effort stems from the substantial number of malnourished in the continent (about 52 million people), including seven percent of children under five, who suffer from chronic malnutrition.
Child malnutrition spreads from one generation to another. It is linked to more than half of the total number of infant deaths worldwide, on a proportion which has never been matched by any infectious disease.
Regional FAO representative Jose Graziano da Silva called on governments to wipe out the scourge; otherwise, the intellectual and physical development of a whole generation of children will be at risk.
He warned that it would take 70 years to eradicate the problem if this rate of hunger and malnutrition remains in Latin America.
In Honduras alone, one of the poorest countries on the continent, 80 percent of the inhabitants live below the poverty line.
Malnutrition affects more than 38 percent of the children, a phenomenon linked to the permanent poverty suffered by most of the country’s population.
According to Monsignor Romulo Emiliani, Assistant Bishop of San Pedro Sula, north of the capital, Tegucigalpa, causes leading to this situation include the country’s economic, political and social system, “which has prevented millions of people from enjoying an equal common good. It has consolidated like a malignant tumor destroying our people’s well-being and hope.” Similarly, in Nicaragua, 82 percent of the population live in poverty, with many doomed to hunger and illiteracy without any access to health care or social welfare.
In Guatemala, 23 percent of the children suffer from chronic hunger, a figure greater than Haiti’s 18 percent.
The poverty-related hunger scourge also affects other countries in Central America and most of the continent.
According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, four Central American nations, including El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, will probably not be able to halve the rate of malnutrition, as stated among the Millennium Goals.
In 1996, as part of the Millennium Goals, the UN called on nations to halve the number of undernourished children, as well as extreme poverty and hunger, by 2015, all aims which are difficult, although not impossible, to achieve.
Brazil, for instance, managed to take about 20 million people out of extreme poverty through special food security programs implemented by the government of President Lula, assisted by FAO and other international agencies.
The region produces three times the quantity of food needed to feed its population, and is the world’s largest food exporter.
During a Regional Conference on Chronic Hunger held in Guatemala in September, 2005, Brazil and Guatemala launched a regional initiative called “Latin America and the Caribbean without Hunger by 2025,” a proposal supported by regional authorities.
The initiative’s aim is to promote and implement policies leading to wipe out hunger in the region by 2025, through a joint effort by governments, congresses and all sectors in civil society. |
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