UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon brought a radical shift in the global fight for the elimination of hunger recently when he announced the ‘Zero Hunger Challenge’ at the launch of the United Nations conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Zero Hunger Challenge calls for the participation of all the countries of the world, making them work for a future in which no individual is lacking the means or proper access to adequate nutrition. Also, all food systems will be elastic.

Ban Ki-moon envisaged a future where there will be no hunger at all, and said, “In a world of plenty, no one – not a single person – should go hungry.”

The Zero Hunger Challenge is supported by the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme, (WFP), UN Children Fund (UNICEF), Bioversity International and The World Bank.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) director Jose Graziano da Silva greatly welcomed the announcement and said, “Big problems call for bold goals. The Zero Hunger Challenge can help us mobilize political commitment, the first step to eradicate hunger,” at a meeting in Brazil.

Ban Ki-moon further said, “I am not proposing a new goal. I am sharing my vision for the future. A future where all people enjoy their fundamental right to food; where people’s livelihoods and food systems are resilient and able to withstand a changing climate.”

Here are world hunger facts from the WFP:

• 65 percent of the world’s hungry live in only 7 countries: India, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• 10.9 million children under the age of 5 die each year in developing countries.
• 925 million people don’t have the provision for adequate food, and 98 percent live in developing countries.
• More than 70 percent of children in the world are underweight and mostly live in 10 countries.

Eradication of global hunger had been at the heart of the Millennium Development Goals projected in the year 2000. It looks like this global call for the eradication of hunger by Ki-moon is an attempt revitalize global hunger reduction efforts.

Zero Hunger Challenge will exert tremendous pressure on governments, especially of those nations where the proportion of hunger is greater, leading to implementation of more stringent and highly effective anti-hunger measures.

Of the 8 Millennium Development Goals, the Eradication of Hunger had been considered most significant and had been ranked the first priority. Inspiration for launching the Zero Hunger Challenge for Ban Ki-moon came from the outstanding work accomplished by Spain’s national Zero Hunger campaign. Brazil had been operating an anti-poverty program called Fome Zero, which was highly successful in lifting around 28 million people out of acute poverty.

The Zero Hunger Challenge may bring a new dawn and let poverty, hunger and starvation remain in the books as the dark era of history in the hope the pulse of poverty and hunger will stop soon.

Image Courtesy of  specialoperations

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About the author

Muhammed Faraaz
Post-graduate in Economics from India, unfolding complexities and policies. Proponent of Classical Economics.