Latin America Relative Success in Fighting Hunger - Literature review Example

Latin America relative success in fighting hunger Latin America becomes the world’s prosperous region to have hunted down the food shortages and the devastating condition of poverty. The region emerges the first to reduce the hunger gap by attaining the world targets. Accomplishing this crucial step makes this area fulfill the Millennium goals in the reduction of the hunger in the world by half of the population of the region. As the region champions through the triumph of the provision of food to its citizens, it has demonstrated a greatest ability to fight over poverty present in its inhabitants and provide sustainable lives to the citizens. Despite the existing large number of poverty as reflected by hunger in the region, this is a clear indication of a move towards the eradication of food insecurity in the region. The reduction of the hunger is also a response to 1996 World Food Summit agreement of areas to join hands to reduce poverty. Poverty alleviation in the area witnessed a decrease from 66 percent in the year 1996 to 44 percent in 2002 the percentage that diminished to 28 percent and 5.5 percent in 2015 (Babu & Pinstrup-Andersen, 2015). The fight represents a reduction of poverty from 605 million people to 34.4 million (Borlaug, 2015). This is because of the strategies stalled two years ago on reducing the extreme hardships. This makes the region meet the millennium goal set in 2000 with a deadline of 2015(The United Nations, 2000). Poverty reduction is the key to development according to this development strategy. The regions should strive to equip people to obtain the basics for survival. In addition, the methods provided should be sustainable such that the citizens can continuously access the food material needed (Sharpe, 2005). It is through this effort that the Latin American has achieved this goal. Hunger is a manifestation of poverty as food is a basic among human necessities ranked highest among basic needs. Masset, (2011) defend this by the fact that a person can live without all other necessities but not without food. Therefore, if this definition is applied to poverty, it is clear that the people who have hunger have the severest form of poverty, as they cannot meet their demand for food (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2003). However, as Lowe & Butryn (2007) notes, not only the mere presence of food that indicates people have satiety. The definition of hunger includes factors like partial to full deficiency in deities. It also includes both malnutrition and undernutrition as the state where the people in a region cannot access right food proportions (Gentilini & Webb, 2008). This places people with these deficiencies in the brackets of poverty even though they may be having enough food. The Caribbean and Latin America achieve a state of being free of these symptoms by reducing their previous status by more than half leaving the margin of 5.5 living with hunger(Food and Agriculture Organization, 2015). The food and agriculture organization (FAO) commends that the region has made tremendous progress in the past too. It is remarkable for the progress of this region between the periods of 1990 and 1992 (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2013b). The same efforts were done at this period to eliminate hunger is reflected in the fight in a period of 2012 and 2016 (Saeed, 2015). This effort has seen the number of hungry people from 11.6 million to 11.4 million (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2015). Whereas it is arguable that the hunger process slowed down in 2013 due to factors like the financial crisis and reduction of the gross domestic income, the region moved past it to provide its citizens with food (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2013b; Gentilini & Webb, 2008). Like a reflection in the fight against poverty, therefore the region has sufficiently succeeded. Masset, (2015) argues that if this region continues at the same rate, it is going to be at the tops to fight this menace threatening the whole world Hunger has many consequences on the economy and the health of people. Therefore, the winning against the hunger war is highly advantageous for this region with highly populated (Ziesemer, 2009). Babu & Pinstrup-Andersen, (2015) and Uvin, (1995) agree that the fight reduces the gap of hunger that is a deprivation of good health in people therefore, leaving people to be healthy and able to run productive life. The United Nations provides it a basic human right for every person to achieve health life. Therefore, the countries have an obligation to ensure that the citizens are enjoying this basic right (United Nation General Assembly, 1948). Furthermore, (Beuchelt & Virchow, 2012) maintains that providing hunger-free population promotes the productivity off a country. Beuchelt & Virchow (2012) and (Masset, 2015) agree that the hunger increases dependency of a nation on another, at the point of relief people become more productive for an effort to be more dependent. Also, poverty deprives people education without which they cannot secure appropriate employment this leads to the vicious cycle of poverty. On the other hand, Poverty deprives people their freedom. Consequently, the whole freedom region becomes free from this sign of poverty to focus on other productive activities. In hunger, the most affected are children and a woman thus this eradication of poverty and hunger reduces gives the generations the ability to make informed choices(Friedmann, Dreze, & Sen, 2014). Statistics indicates that the women and children make the majority of the population in Latin America. The hunger relives, therefore, comes as a remedy for the women and children. Either, the triumph gives the countries a significant gain in economic growth (Lucero, 2009). The autonomy that comes with this achievement is evident in the economic benefit that is about to be experienced by this region. This also raises awareness of the fact of poverty, and the efforts needed to eliminate the defect (Lowe & Butryn, 2007). This is crucial in preventing the backsliding of the economy. The problem with food is access rather than production. Whereas it is clear that food is abundantly available in the Latin America, it is clear that the meagre resources the citizens get cannot sufficiently make them afford it (Piech, Pastorino, & Zald, 2014). Borlaug (2015) argues that, elimination of hunger needs more than just laying the food on the table, it should go beyond to ensure that the food will regularly available for the citizen of the region. Some countries have the ability to eliminate poverty faster than others do, however; the poverty level persists in the region even with one country eliminating the poverty (Sharpe, 2005). This factor makes a fight against hunger to be a regional problem rather than an individual country problem, as it needs a collaborative effort to solve the problem. It is by the virtue of this that calls other nation to help each other in the fastening of the poverty eradication. The effort shared by this region in bettering the food and nutrition security has attribution to many factors. FAO attributes positive macroeconomic backdrop in the region for the last decade to be the leading factor (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2015). The macroeconomic backdrop has rendered the region the ability to handle some of the financial crisis and therefore ability to provide for its citizens. Consequently, people had the ability to make a better earning a positive sign of victory against poverty and therefore hunger (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2015). On the other hand, the political commitment in the region also has significantly contributed to the diminishing poverty levels. The political commitment of the South and Central America and that of the Caribbean has shed light to the citizens on the better methods to live and on how to improve the efficacy in life (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2013b). Their constant campaign through strengthening the economy and provision of employment for the citizens in the region has seen the people rise and become better in the management of poverty. The political system has commendation for its implementation of the food security nutrition and hunger eradication plan. The plan has the aim to eradicate the hunger by the year 2025 (The United Nations, 2000). The political systems of this region have adequately implemented this by the support of agriculture, provision of employment to its citizens and education to do away with poverty (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2015). It is evident on the steps taken in this from 1996 the nations has subsided the agricultural systems something that has provided food for the majority of the local system, this has also provided the much needed food to urban areas providing a source of income for the citizens (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2013b). Besides, there has been strengthening of the education system to provide the citizens with the basics for employment. This work in the local and international and both in the private and public sector has been fundamental in this victory over poverty. The country has also significantly invested in other complementary sectors to food, security. This includes the mitigation of the effects of climate change. The campaign to save the Amazon forest is a clear indication of this what the region is doing to regulate the climate (Lowe & Butryn, 2007). Even though this is indirect measures, it is a long-term measure with an aim to provide a sustainable climate supporting agriculture (The United Nations, 2000). This is relieved to mall scale farmers who purely rely on agriculture for survival. The climate regulation measure plays an important measure to eliminate the poverty gaps more so in the rural areas where the problem is prevalent (Beuchelt & Virchow, 2012). The fragility of the complex environment in the rural area is modified in a special way by the climate to provide food sustainably. Therefore, utilization of the climate change is crucial to the achievement of sustainable food production systems. To fight end eradicate hunger efforts is needed, this ranges from the individual effort to the governments and the international body. The region receives praise for the effort that they have received to fight for the hunger (Uvin, 2015). These efforts have been an emphasis in policies supporting vulnerable groups and those who are not able to meet their cost of living. Many stakeholders have played a role in this includes various policies for the stakeholders ranging from agriculture to the food industries. More than 30 million people have triumphed the war on poverty in the last 20 years (Borlaug, 2015). This makes this process to be reliable. Masset (2015) argues that imitation of this will see other regions triumph over the devastating poverty that is cribbing the region’s economy. Despite the fact of the region as a whole achieving the significant reduction in poverty, the levels of poverty in individual states are still high. According to statistics, the region South America is the leading with the largest number of undernourished population (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2003, 2010, 2013b, 2015). The region accounts for about 66 percent of regions total population of the Latin America has a soaring level of poverty that represent about 47 percent of the region (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2013a). Even with the achievement of the tremendous reduction in poverty levels, the poverty reduction in this region does not equally reduce (Lowe & Butryn, 2007). Similarly, the Haiti situation has rendered the Caribbean to lag behind. The Caribbean presents 7.5 million people with the poverty of which 75 percent hail from Haiti (Persons, 2014). This makes Haiti be the poorest country in the hemisphere with the majority of the malnourished people. The Haiti problem has its basis on the political instability experienced in the country and the negative impact it has on the economic growth (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2003). However, Friedmann, Dreze and Sen (2014) finds the situation of Haiti to be deeply rooted in many factors dating back to the colonial period and land distribution. Only Central America has greatly reduced the number of hunger within its region (Beuchelt & Virchow, 2012). The statistic indicates that even though it was stagnant in the year 2003 Central America reduced the poverty levels from 12.6million in the year 2002 to 11.4 in the year 2006, the gap that has significantly reduced in the 2015 statistics(Bridges, 2015) . It is notable that the problems experienced by specific regions may take long to solve, and the efforts seem to weaken as the countries have different priorities (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2013). To sum up, Policy remains the best alternative to eliminate this poverty menace. All the regions should spearhead a model for change from the undesired effects of more effective policies. The perfect results will be in high-quality public policies seeking to make the lives of people batter preparing them to solve this problem. The social policies made should be to supplement the global policies like the millennium development goals. These should seek to reduce the statistical gaps that the global policies may fail to fulfill on their own. Since these policies should be more specific to the region, they should be more effective in solving the issues at the regional level. The policies should also address both the extremes like obesity and poor quality of food. 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