Institute Notes: A Dialogue on Overcoming Hunger and Poverty

A Tale of Two Communities

NPR this morning had a blurb between news segments about the healthiest and unhealthiest communities in America. The healthiest community is Burlington, VT, where 92 percent of the population describe themselves in “good or great health.” A report by the Centers for Disease Control verifies it to be the case, so it’s not solely about the perceptions of the folks that live there.

Then NPR told us about the least healthy community in the country, Huntington, WV, where obesity rates and hence diabetes rates are abnormally high, and that many of the elderly don't have teeth. All these are signs of poverty, so I wondered why NPR didn’t say anything about poverty in the story. I went to the NPR website to see if I could find a transcript, but it’s evidently too early to get it; however, the website did post an AP story—which included the following details contrasing life in Burlington versus Huntington.

—Burlington is better off financially, with 8 percent living at the federal poverty level, compared to 19 percent in Huntington.
—It's much more educated, with nearly 40 percent of area residents having at least a college bachelor's degree. Only 15 percent in the Huntington area do.

It would have been helpful if NPR had included these details from the AP story because it would put the comparison of the two communities in context. It would have helped even more to explain that poor health, poverty and low levels of education often travel together.

In our next hunger report, released a week from today, we talk about using a more expansive framework in thinking about deprivation and social exclusion in the Untied States. It’s about more than just income-poverty, the framework we rely on in this country. Anyone who studies or works on issues related to human development understands that health and education are inseparable from poverty and hunger, that you rarely find one without the other, and it makes a whole lot of sense to address these problems together, as the Millennium Development Goals do. And it would make sense to do so right here in the United States.

An Important Reminder in Worrying Times

Worsening economic data and the ups and downs of the Dow can become all consuming these days, not to mention the elections. An op-ed in this morning's paper brought together three important and impressive voices to remind us that we should not forget about poor people around the world even as we try to rebuild the global financial system. Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the UN, Michel Camdessus former Managing Director of the IMF and Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton, all part of the Africa Progress Panel, focused on the Millennium Development Goals and the renewed commitment and energy that is needed to achieve them, along the lines of the effort being put forward on addressing the financial crisis. They argue that in an increasingly interconnected world, extreme poverty and hopelessness can no longer be ignored. 

In two weeks, when the G-20 countries meet in Washington to discuss how to update the international institutional framework for the global financial system, it would be very powerful if they went beyond that and also agreed to put political weight and some real resources behind achieving the MDGs and long-term sustainable economic development.

Making Progress Toward the MDGs - Part 2

In addition to the MDG 2008 Report, the MDG Gap Task Force recently came out with a report on MDG 8, entitled Delivering on the Global Partnership for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The MDG Gap Task Force was created to improve the monitoring of MDG 8 and leverage inter-agency coordination.  While there are existing platforms for inter-agency coordination for MDGs 1-7, the monitoring of the global partnership in MDG 8 has been poorly coordinated, making it difficult to measure the progress of international commitments.  This particular report represents the efforts of the task force to address the delivery gap between global commitments and their actual delivery in the developing world.

Making Progress Toward the MDGs

Ahead of the UN High Level Event on the Millennium Development Goals, the global body has released its annual Millennium Development Goals Report 2008.  The report emphasizes that while progress has been made on the MDGs overall, this progress is threatened by rising global food and fuel prices as well as global economic downturn.

Here is an overview of key findings from the report:

Global Poverty Numbers Revised Upwards by the World Bank

On Tuesday, as the US Census Bureau was reporting on the latest poverty figures for the United States, the World Bank released it's own new data on global poverty. The Bank's report estimates that the number of poor people around the world is far higher than originally estimated. The number of poor people in 2005 is now estimated at 1.4 billion up from earlier estimates of 948 million, an increase of 500 million. This new data reflects improved ways of measuring the cost of living in developing countries and a larger set of household surveys in more countries. It suggests that the earlier measure of extreme poverty, the number of people who live on less than $1 a day underestimated the cost of living in developing countries. The new poverty line is $1.25 a day.

The report, “The Developing World is Poorer Than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight against Poverty,” recalculates poverty rates for the last 25 years and finds that the number of people living in poverty under this new poverty line has fallen from 1.9 billion in 1981 to 1.4 billion. The world has been making steady progress in reducing poverty since 1981 at about 1% a year. At this rate, the world is on target to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal. However, there are significant disparities between regions and across countries. While the number of people in extreme poverty in China is higher than originally estimated (207 million as opposed to 130 million), it has made dramatic progress since 1981, when the number of people below the poverty line was 835 million. The rest of the developing world (not including China) has seen the number of people below $1.25 stay at around 1.2 billion since 1981, largely because population growth has outstripped progress against poverty.

The Millennium Development Goals -- Is the U.S. at all serious?

The U.S. government has finally published its own self assessment on progress relative to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – The United States Commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. And even by the standards of government bureaucratic flummery, this is a particularly lame document. One would never know from reading it just what the eight MDGs and their progress indicators are, much less the extent to which the USG is helping countries to meet them. Instead, there is simply a bald assertion that the United States is a strong and consistent supporter of the goals of the Millennium Declaration of the United Nations, followed by a resume of U.S. development strategy and its “four key components:” Country ownership and good governance; a pro-growth economic strategy; investing in people; and addressing failing and fragile states.

And even here, the document is much longer on assertion that evidence of achievement. Contrary to the report’s claim of “strong” U.S. support for the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the U.S. government has been one of the laggards when it comes to aligning aid with country priorities, “untying” aid (i.e., eliminating the requirement that aid be spent on donor country goods and services), using recipient country procurement and financial management systems and working through coordinated multi-donor and multilateral institutions. And as for supporting pro-growth economic policy, USAID’s funding for economic growth is at its lowest level in years. The two unambiguously positive features of U.S. aid are its support for AIDS relief (PEPFAR) and malaria, which implicitly address MDG 6, and debt relief (one of the indicators of MDG 8). The Millennium Challenge Act incorporates a number of the Paris Declaration principles, but it is too early to see any real effects in terms of poverty alleviation.

World Scientists’ New Proposal to Feed the Poor

The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) launched their report, April 15. Four hundred experts on agriculture and development worked on the report which outlines ways in which “agriculture can feed a world with an exploding population and a changing climate, while reducing poverty and environmental degradation”

The report is a result of a four year assessment involving scientists from more than 100 countries. It engaged non-governmental organizations, consumer groups and the private sector. The central question of IAASTD is core to what Bread for the World’s mission. The report is extensive (it is more than 2000 pages) and looks at the potential of agricultural knowledge and science and technology to reduce hunger and poverty, improve rural livelihoods, and achieve environmentally, socially and economically sustainable development in poor countries.

The report’s release coincides with heightened concern over rising world food prices and the IAASTD report responds to this growing concern by arguing that global farming needs to change radically to avoid future food shortages.

The report advances several important arguments. Among them:

• In the past agricultural science has emphasized increasing agricultural production at the expense of environmental, social or economic sustainability.
• Trade liberalization in agriculture has not benefited all countries that have opened their markets. This is because some developing countries which have liberalized agricultural trade have not made improvements in basic infrastructure and institutions that are necessary to relieve hunger and poverty, and improve and protect the environment. And;
• Agricultural research and development efforts have focused on only a handful of crops without advancing knowledge or improvements in other staples foods, some of which are important to Africa, for instance tef in Ethiopia. In advancing agricultural science in similar countries, the IAASTD report acknowledges that “Genetic erosion is of particular concern in sub-Saharan Africa because many countries have a wide range of crops and livestock species that are considered relatively unimportant on a global level but are important as local staples.

The report also stresses that “we have little time to lose if we are to change course. Continuing with current trends would exhaust our resources and put our children’s future in jeopardy.”

Senate Farm Bill Misses the Mark

For those who have been closely following the farm bill fight, it’s old news that another milestone has been reached in efforts to reauthorize the farm bill. For those who, in this holiday season, have more important things to think about than the arcane parliamentary proceedings of the Senate, what you need to know is that despite a majority of support for several reform-oriented amendments, the Senate passed bill is the equivalent of a big lump of coal to fill your Christmas Stockings. The process was a fairly rocky one – Ken Cook over at the Mulch Blog has a good post on the tricky politics behind the process and outcome. In the end, despite the well coordinated efforts of groups like Bread for the World, Oxfam, The Environmental Working group, Environmental Defense, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and scores of others, reform efforts were thwarted.

Soaring food prices globally

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization released its Food Outlook yesterday (November 7). The report finds that high commodity prices, including high cereal prices, have led to escalating prices of food and feed through out the world.

In its coverage of the report, the FT writes:

Poor developing countries will be forced to cut food consumption and risk a rise in malnutrition after an "alarming" increase in their agricultural commodities bills, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation warned yesterday.

In its biannual Food Outlook report, the FAO -predicted that prices, particularly cereals, would remain high in 2008, having hit record levels this year.

"Given the firmness of food prices in the international markets, the situation could deteriorate further in the coming months, leading to a reduction in imports and consumption in many low-income food-deficit countries," the report said.

Ali Arslan Gurkan, chief of commodity markets and -policy analysis at the FAO in Rome, said sub--Saharan countries were most at risk and added that high prices meant it was increasingly difficult to meet UN goals on hunger reduction.

The report finds that increasing demand for food, feed and biofuels combined with poor weather conditions in some parts of the world and rising oil prices and shipping costs have created the conditions for rising prices. While food prices are rising everywhere, it is important to remember that the impact of high food prices will be felt disproportionately by poor people.

A great new MDG tracking resource

In my view, aside from the fact that they represent a global consensus, one of the most powerful aspects about the Millennium Development Goals is the fact that they are measurable. Measurability is important because it provides a clear sense of where we are, the progress we have made and how much further we need to go. This data helps ordinary citizens hold their governments accountable. Readily available and updated information means that people can measure their own country's progress but also compare it to neighboring countries. If one country is doing better than its very similar neighbors that raises important questions that can help focus policy conversations and advocacy efforts. The UN, Google and Cisco have just developed a new tool to track progress towards achieving the MDGs--the MDG monitor uses Google Earth to provide a very interactive (and cool) way to find country-specific data. With 7 years and 86 days left to 2015...this comes not a moment too soon!

Other useful resources include the World Bank's Global Monitoring Report and UNDP's MDG Webpage.