Moral Duty to Eradicate World Hunger - Coursework Example

Moral Duty to Eradicate World Hunger Introduction It is a paradox that while the right to food is regarded a human right, many people in the world still go without food and many countries have to fight with perennial food shortages. The introductory premises of the The Right to Adequate Food (Article 11): 05/12/1999 states that the human right to adequate food is recognized in several instruments under international law (United Nations Economic and Social Council, 1999). Further, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights explores this issue in more detail than any other instrument that deals with this right (United Nations Economic and Social Council, 1999). These instruments notwithstanding, it is evident that even with a larger capacity to produce food globally there are disparities in how the food is distributed. Thus, more food does not necessarily imply that all people in the world have food. Sceptics are of the opinion that focusing on production of more food alone cannot alleviate hunger because this fails to change the highly concentrated distribution of economic power, in particular access to land and purchasing power. The corollary of the imbalance of economic power is that if individuals do not have land on which to grow food or the wealth to buy food, they would go hungry, irrespective of how dramatically food production and hence availability of food is pushed up (Mukherjee, 2004, p. 2). The narrow focus on production also defeats itself because it destroys the very resource base on which agriculture depends. It is appalling that that even though international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank recognise the disparities in availability of food in different parts of the world, they do not have mechanisms to overcome these disparities. The World Bank itself noted the curious paradox that even with increasing production of food, the world was possessed of even more hungry people (Mukherjee, 2004, p. 2). In deed, the number of hungry people increased throughout the world during the 1970s, and the trend seems to be increasing. From the background information above, it is evident that even the right to food is a universal human right, it is a mere statement as many people still suffer from hunger in spite of the availability of adequate food in other parts of the world. This paper thus focuses on this issue and argues that all people have a moral duty to eradicate world hunger. The paper highlights some of the reasons for the imbalance in distributions of food, and why the world’s wealthy countries should play a leading role in eradicating hunger in poorer countries. The paper highlights the dictum that hunger, irrespective of where it exists, is morally wrong and a violation of people’s human right especially when the World Bank and the IMF do nothing to eliminate the political and economic barriers that hinder availability of adequate food in al parts of the world. Status of world hunger The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations estimates that the world over 925 million were undernourished in 2010. While this figure can be regarded an improvement as compared to the statistics for 2009, it remains unacceptably high (FAO, 2010). A notable fact about the world hunger statistics is that most of the world’s hungry live in developing countries, where they represent 16 percent of the population. The region that is most affected by hunger continues to be Asia and the Pacific region. The sub-Saharan Africa region remains the area with the highest proportion of undernourished people, at 30 percent. Expressed in numbers, the Asia and Pacific region is most affected by hunger, with 578 million people, followed by the sub-Saharan Africa region with 239 million people, and the Latin America and the Caribbean region with 53 million people. The Near East and North Africa region is not so severely affected by hunger, with only 73 million people affected; and the developed countries are the least affected, with only 19 million people in the bracket (FAO, 2010). The world hunger statistics are based on the estimates of numbers of people who are undernourished. This ignores the number of people who suffer from malnutrition (implying that they lack some or all the nutritional requirements. In essence therefore, no one really knows the number of people around the world who are malnourished. The fact that there was a decline in the number of people affected by hunger between 2009 and 2010 does not imply that the world is about to eradicate hunger. In fact, figures from previous years suggest differently. For instance, since the period between 1995 and 1997, the rate of world hunger increased significantly until 2009. The reasons attributed to the increase in world hunger include (1) neglect of agriculture that is relevant to very poor people and by governments and international agencies; (2) the recent worldwide economic recession; and (3) the significant increase of food prices in over the last years – which has been devastating to those with less money to spend (Hunger Notes, 2010). These factors must be well understood in order to appreciate the moral obligation that everyone (especially the developed countries) has to play to ensure that hunger is alleviated. There is also need to highlight the other sources of hunger and how they can be eliminated to ensure that everyone in the world is well fed regardless of where he or she is located. Sources of hunger While there are many sources of world hunger, including conflict and climate, this paper discusses in detail two major issues: poverty and political and economic dimensions of hunger vulnerability. Poverty Many food authorities generally agree that poverty is the main cause of world hunger (Seitz, 2002, p. 76). Millions of people do not have enough money to purchase as much food as they need, or better varieties of food. This is the reason why starvation and malnutrition continue more or less unabated through periods of world food glut and food shortage. In essence, the world’s poorest cannot afford to buy the food they need, no matter the price it is sold at. Low income people in the southern hemisphere suffer during food shortages when food prices increase dramatically, as was the case during the early 1970s when the prices of food items such as wheat, rice, and corn doubled in a period of just two years. Globally, the poor generally spend between 60 and 80 percent of their income on food. If the world demand for certain foods, such as for beef in the United Kingdom fast-food market increases, then the large landowners in developing countries will focus on growing food or raising cattle for export to this the overseas market rather than for domestic consumption. Consequently, this results in an increase in domestic food prices as the supply of food to the local market is reduced (Seitz, 2002, p. 76). The causes of poverty include the poor people’s lack of resources, an extremely lopsided distribution of income around the world and within particular countries, hunger itself and conflict (Hunger Notes, 2010). Around the globe, many people live in conditions that make their poverty more likely to end up in malnutrition. Such conditions include unequal distribution of within the household that can leave some family members disadvantaged. Other conditions include poor sanitation systems that make diarrhoeal conditions inevitable and lead to poor nutritional outcomes despite the otherwise sufficient food intake. Poverty thus exacerbates hunger in many ways in combination with other factors such as poor access to health care, seasonality in income, unequal intrahousehold distribution among other factors (Bassett & Winter-Nelson, 2010, p. 5). Political and economic dimensions of hunger vulnerability There are three wide explanations to link the political and economic dimensions of the world with hunger. Immediate causes of hunger are perceived to be disease and poor consumption. The factors that lead to malnutrition and disease include poverty, insufficient health services and sanitation, and poor child feeding and care. Further, the ultimate causes of hunger include the broader social and political-economic perspective which takes into consideration power and class relations, ideologies, economic distribution, technology and resources (Bassett & Winter-Nelson, 2010, p. 5). Poverty and entitlement failure can be considered to be the most significant underlying causes of hunger (Bassett & Winter-Nelson, 2010, p. 5). This means that eradicating hunger the world over must focus on these issues. This is because poverty and entitlement failure are linked to power relations and institutions through the notion of empowerment, which denotes the capacity to of individuals as well as groups of people to shape the political economy that in turn determines the entitlements (Bassett & Winter-Nelson, 2010, p. 5). Bassett and Winter-Nelson (2010, p. 6) also note that vulnerability to hunger measures the susceptibility of people to food shortages in their respective political economies. If this is true, it means that people in the developing countries are more susceptible in that they are not in position to effectively determine or shape their political economies and are thus exposed to all the maladies that come with poverty, and hence hunger. Vulnerability of the people is high where governments are not accountable to their people and entitlements are weak. The converse is true, in that countries that have responsible governments are less vulnerable to hunger, and citizens enjoy more entitlements. Dealing with the political and economic dimensions of hunger vulnerability requires dealing with the disparities that lead to the same in different countries. For instance, in February 2007, thousands of people marched through the streets of Mexico City to protest the high price of tortillas. The price of tortillas, the Mexican staple, had increased by 40 percent in three months, forcing poor households to spend a large portion of their daily incomes on food. The cause of the price increase was partly the greater demand for corn in the United States by agro-chemical industries, which pushed the prices of corn to their highest in ten years (Bassett & Winter-Nelson, 2010, p. 8). The immediate cause of the crisis in Mexico was foods becoming too costly for the poor households to have sufficient consumption. Again, the main reason for this vulnerability is poverty. More than one-sixth of Mexicans live below the national poverty line – they earn too little to meet the minimum requirements of food, shelter and clothing. The pervasive poverty left many people too vulnerable to hunger when corn prices increased. The ultimate cause of poverty in Mexico is the skewed income distribution that gives the richest people 40 percent of the national income while leaving the poorest 10 percent of the population with approximately 1.5 percent of the total income (Bassett & Winter-Nelson, 2010, p. 8). The tortilla protests other depictions of ongoing inequality thus show that neoliberal policies and democratisation have not addressed the needs of the poor and working class in Mexico (Shefner, 2008, p. 194). Schwartz (2002, p. 72) argues along the same line by noting that there is great poverty in the less developed countries because the social and economic inequalities that exist in these countries prevent people from making a fulfilling living. The author further argues that land and wealth are concentrated among a few hands, and with the two resources goes the power to control the destiny of the populace. Control of land as well as the things that are required to make the land productive – such as seeds, machinery, tools, pesticides and irrigation – are in considerably few hands. It can thus be noted that world hunger can be understood (and thus eradicated) by analysing the powerful misconceptions that obstruct the perception of the real causes of hunger and thus prevent immediate and relevant action. As noted by Dr. Peter Rosset, the Executive Director of Food First, and co-author of World Hunger, “The true source of world hunger is not scarcity but policy; not inevitability but politics” (Schwartz (2002, p. 73). Dr. Rosset added that “the real culprits are economies that fail to offer everyone opportunities and societies that place economic efficiency over consumption” (Schwartz, 2002, p. 73). Why eradicating hunger should be a moral obligation for everyone The misconceptions about availability of food and hunger should be a wakeup call for everyone, especially the developed nations and international institutions to partake in eradicating hunger. It today’s world, the words of Richard Cohen, remain to be true: “it is paradoxical but hardly surprising that the right to food has been endorsed more often and with greater unanimity and agency than most other human rights, while at the same time being violated more comprehensively and systematically than probably any other” (Mukherjee, 2004, p. 2). There is need to stop the violation of the right to food, and come to the realization that is morally wrong for a section of the world’s population to go without food when they are actually entitled to the same. More attention should be given not only to ensuring that more food is produced globally, but also ensuring the food is available where and when it is needed. Further, emphasis should be put on ensuring that people actually have the appropriate food to fulfil their nutritional requirements. Essentially, it is important to address the disparities that exist between developed countries and the less developed or developing ones, which cause imbalances in food distribution. Key to this is eliminating the social, political and economic barriers that cause the imbalances. The areas that need to be addressed are discussed next. Post-colonialism As it was discussed earlier world hunger seems to mostly affect people in Asia and the Pacific region and sub-Saharan Africa. According to Gardels (1997, p. 1), It is sardonic that two there seem to be two worlds on the same planet, one fast and one slow, which are spinning in opposite directions. Gardels further adds that “one world is toiling to stave off hunger; the other – encompassing America, as well as parts of Europe and Asia – is chomping at the byte to cross over intro cyberspace” (p.1). Gardels thus presents two worlds that are focusing on totally different things. On one hand, developed countries (as well as China and Japan from Asia) are struggling to have the best technologies while other countries are struggling get the basic items to feed their people. Countries such as the United States and some in Europe are rapidly speeding ahead, leaving the underdeveloped ones with perpetual problems, including hunger. Yet, the progress made in the developed countries comes at the expense of the underdeveloped countries, which are the sources of some of the developed countries’ successes. McEwan (2009, p. 50) cites Fanon (1967) who argued that Europe is factually a creation of the Third World. Fanon also added that “the wealth which smother her (Europe) is that which was stolen from the under-developed people” McEwan (2009, p. 50). Fanon’s remarks can be likened to those made by other critics of underdevelopment during the 1960s such as Walter Ridney and Andre Gunder Frank in Latin America. During that time, underdevelopment was defined as deliberately created poverty by imperialism, including lack of access to heath care, food, drinkable water, housing and education. Developed countries were accused of actively blocking the development of agrarian countries in the south by policies intended to protect their global power and superior position in world trade. The status quo still prevails as developed countries still hold strategic power with regards to agrarian products, which compels farmers in developing countries to export their produce to the developed countries – leaving their countries without adequate food. The tortilla protests in Mexico are a good exemplar to this. In addition countries in Africa have been left as the net exporters of coffee, cocoa, peanuts, cattle, beans, barley, tea and many other crops, yet ironically Africa remains one of the regions hardest hit by hunger (Ronzio, 2003, p. 344). Both developing and developed countries have a moral obligation to alleviate hunger in different ways. According to a study conducted on world hunger in 1980, the developing and the developed countries must share the blame for allowing world hunger to exist. The Presidential Commission (of the United States) that conducted the research noted that in developing countries, local political problems, national security issues, and industrial development generally attracted more attention and resources than eradicating poverty or investing in agriculture (Seitz, 2002, p. 78). The Commission also stated that few nations did not even have eradicating poverty or investing in agriculture among their top developmental priorities. As such, the development of remote, backward rural areas has raised little psychological concern to civilian or military rulers who are keen on maintaining their control and modernising their societies along complex technological and industrial lines (Seitz, 2002, p. 78). For instance in the 1980s, the then Kenyan President Daniel Moi authorised the manufacturing of an expensive yet moribund car dubbed the “Nyayo Car” at the expense of ensuring that all Kenyans were well fed (Weiss, 2004, p. 319). By adopting the priorities of the industrialised world such as modernising their armies and parts of their cities, many third world countries have neglected other essential sectors such as agriculture and health care, hence the persistent hunger. Turning to the developed countries, the Presidential Commission noted that the United States and other developed countries must share responsibility to for world hunger because their foreign aid policies have been focused on other directions. The Commission noted that the United States and other developed nations had placed a low priority on alleviating world hunger. Since World War II, the Commission noted, the industrialised nations had been preoccupied with East-West tensions and maintaining economic growth. These primary goals largely determined both the nature and extent of the West’s involvement with the Third World. As such, more money from the developed world has always been available for arms transfers, military assistance, and training of military personnel than for educating scientists, teachers, farmers, economists and health care experts (Seitz, 2002, p. 78). Moral reflections on world hunger alone are worthless because no one seems to deny that hunger is bad and should not exist. Even the United States has gone beyond expectations to deny that the World Food Summit pledge, which refers to hunger as “intolerable” and “unacceptable,” offers any international obligations. This moral error that is shared by other developed countries is the fundamental obstacle to eradicating world hunger. Without a feeling of moral obligation for the global economic order that the world is endorsing, there cannot be a political will to reform this order, nor sufficient willingness by individuals and governments to mitigate its worst effects (Furrow, 2004, p. 90). Why developed countries should bear greater moral responsibility Furrow (2004, p. 90) asserts that the moral responsibility developed countries should have toward eradicating world hunger should be based on measures of reform and mitigation. Pathak (2010, p. 102) contributes to this by noting that leaders in developing countries should be bear certain moral obligations in saving people from poverty, but it is citizens from developed countries who have an even greater responsibility to alleviate global poverty as they have benefited from years of colonialism and the exploitation of natural resources in other regions of the world. Former colonial powers’ indiscriminate exploitation of human and natural resources of their colonies, which spanned as long as four centuries in some instances, undermined dominated areas’ potential for future development. Nevertheless, developed countries may question why they should be accountable for assisting underdeveloped countries. In light of the massive relocation of resources to colonial power during the colonial times, there is need to assign a collective responsibility to those nations that benefited from colonial rule. It is their responsibility to help ease the problems affecting underdeveloped countries, especially hunger (Pathak, 2010, p. 102). The principle of distributive justice as stated by moral and political philosopher Joan Rawls applies here. Rawls (1999) notes that although inequality among nations grew at different times and in different places, people must view the world as a global community and not as a particular country or society (cited by Pathak, 2010, p. 102). This means that hunger should be viewed to be affecting humanity – not Africa, Asia or South America. The issue should be viewed from a moral standpoint of emphasizing the significance of equal human rights. This standpoint is also discussed by Mittal (1985, p. 18), who suggests that the ultimate solution to food shortage is to think of a world economy. One way to go about this is to invest in small-scale agriculture as this reduces hunger and facilitates adaptations to climate change (Oxfam, 2009). Normative theory Normative theory helps humanity find answers to the difficult normative questions facing the world today (Frost, 2009, p. 3). One area has to with the role multinational corporations play in global development. Whereas the positive contributions of multinational corporations cannot be gainsaid, it is worthy mentioning that the operations of some companies have cut ailed development in the underdeveloped countries and countries have thus elevated the conditions that perpetuate hunger. According to Kirkpatrick et al (1987, p. 176), it would be incorrect to hurriedly settle on the conclusion that less developed nations benefit from the influx of multinational investments. On the contrary, instead of assisting poor countries to come to terms with even the most basic problems they face, such as hunger and disease, multinational corporations have compounded the world’s hunger problem. This is because such companies invest according to what they deem most profitable for them and not in accordance with the human needs of people. In addition, because they extract profits from the poor countries, they actually increasingly impoverish these nations. For instance, agricultural production has become increasingly mechanized and monopolized to certain activities for the profit needs of the multinationals. In Brazil, coffee production has captured large portions of land, and peasants from the countryside have been forced to the slums of the big cities where they find it even more difficult to access food, work and shelter (Kirkpatrick et al, 1987, p. 176), The same scenario was evident in Zimbabwe, where large tracts of land were owned by foreigners while the poor native Zimbabwean lived in squalors – with limited access to adequate food, water and shelter. The problem with dealing with multinational corporations is that they operate within international legal frameworks, which are not exhaustively defined. Miller (2008, p. 384) effectively addresses this issue by noting that “many multinational corporations have become at least as powerful as some of the states in which they function.” This makes it more difficult for the relevant international institutions such as the IMF and World Bank to exert their authority. Yet, most of the corporations originate from the developed countries. Developed countries thus need to work with developing countries to ensure that multinational corporations help to alleviate poverty – which is closely associated with hunger. Going beyond increasing foods production As it was noted earlier, merely increasing food production is not a guarantee to eliminating hunger. An Oxfam statement presented at a G8 Agriculture Summit in Italy in 2008 states that “increasing food production is not enough – poor people need jobs and social protection” (Oxfam, 2009). This again reinforces the issue of empowerment – that both the developed countries and the developing countries have to increase their people’s entitlements. Importantly, developed countries should realise it is only when they support developing countries to be self-sufficient that they can empower their citizens to eliminate poverty and hence hunger. Conclusion This paper has discussed the status of world hunger, and the moral responsibility of different parties to eradicate it. Poverty and political and dimensions of hunger vulnerability have been identified as some of the major causes of widespread hunger, especially in the Asia and pacific region and sub-Saharan Africa. It has been discussed that developed countries have a moral duty to help eradicate hunger in poor countries because of the historical colonial times in which they exploited resources from the hitherto underdeveloped countries and deprived them of development. This can be achieved if the world is viewed as a global community as opposed to regionalising it. Importantly, developed countries should ensure that their strategies go beyond increasing globally food production. Citizens of poor countries need to be empowered so that they acquire jobs and social protection that can make them self-reliant. References Bassett, T.J., & Winter-Nelson, A. 2010, The Atlas of World Hunger, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. FAO, 2009, “Feeding the World, Eradicating Hunger,” World Summit on Food Security, Rome 16-18 November 2009, Available from http://www.fao.org/.../WSFS_Background_paper_Feeding_the_world.pdf (7 January 2011). 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Mittal, K. 1985, Education and World Hunger, Mittal Publications, Delhi. Mujih, E. 2004, “The regulation of multinational companies operating in developing countries: A case study of the Chad–Cameroon pipeline project,” Social Responsibility: An International Journal, pp. 83-99. Available from http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3366/E0954889008000078 (29 December 2010). Mukherjee, A. 2004, Hunger: Theory, Perspectives, and Reality: Assessment through Participatory Methods, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., London. Oxfam, 2009, “G8 Ministers of Agriculture must take concrete action to eradicate world hunger: Oxfam International Statement ahead of the G8 Agriculture Summit in Italy, 18th to 20th April 2009,” Available from ww.oxfamsol.be/fr/IMG/pdf/G8_Agriculture_Briefing_Note_FINAL.pdf (8 January 2011). Pathak, K.M. 2010, “Poverty and hunger in the developing world: Ethics, the global economy and human survival,” in D. M. Nault (ed), Asia Journal of Global Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2. 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