Dr. Debesh Bhowmik: POVERTY AND HUNGER WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO AFRICA

POVERTY AND HUNGER WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO AFRICA

---------------Debesh Bhowmik

Hunger concepts and definitions

Hunger is a term which has three meanings (Oxford English Dictionary 1971)

the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food; craving appetite. Also the exhausted condition caused by want of food
the want or scarcity of food in a country
a strong desire or craving

World 805 million people – or one in nine people in the world – do not have enough to eat.
98% of the world’s undernourished people live in developing countries.
Where is hunger the worst?

Asia: 525.6 million
Sub-Saharan Africa: 214 million
Latin America and the Caribbean: 37 million

Aiming at the very heart of hunger, The Hunger Project is currently committed to work in Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, India, Ghana, Malawi, Mexico, Mozambique, Peru, Senegal and Uganda.

hunger refers to the second definition, aggregated to the world level.

The related technical term is malnutrition, or, if malnutrition is taken to refer to both undernutrition and overnutrition (obesity, overweight) as it increasingly is, undernutrition. Both malnutrition and undernutrition refer to the effects on people of not having enough food.

There are two basic types of malnutrition/undernutrition. The first and most important is protein-energy malnutrition . This leads to growth failure. Principal types of growth failure are:

The two types of acute malnutrition are wasting (also called marasmus) or nutritional edema, (also called kwashiorkor). Wasting is characterised by rapid weight loss and in its severe form can lead to death. Nutritional edema is caused by insufficient protein in the diet. ...
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Stunting is a slow, cumulative process and is caused by insufficient intake of some nutrients. It is estimated by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to affect 161 million children world wide (UNICEF Nutrition). Stunted children may have normal body proportions but look younger than their actual age. Stunting develops over a long period as a result of inadequate nutrition or repeated infections, or both.

The second type of malnutrition, also very important, is micronutrient (vitamin and mineral) deficiency. This is not the type of malnutrition that is referred to when world hunger is discussed, though it is certainly very important. Specific examples of micronutrient deficiency such as Vitamin A are discussed below

Number of hungry people in the world

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 805 million people of the 7.3 billion people in the world, or one in nine, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2012-2014. Almost all the hungry people, 791 million, live in developing countries, representing 13.5 percent, or one in eight, of the population of developing counties. There are 11 million people undernourished in developed countries .

Undernourishment around the world, 1990-2 to 2012-4
Number of undernourished and prevalence (%) of undernourishment

	1990-2 No.	1990-2 %	2012-4 No.	2012-4 %
World	1,014.5	18.7	805.3	11.3
Developed regions	20.4	<5	14.6	<5
Developing regions	994.1	23.4	790.7	14.5
Africa	182.1	27.7	226.7	20.5
Sub-Saharan Africa	176.0	33.3	214.1	23.8
Asia	742.6	23.7	525.6	12.7
Eastern Asia	295.2	23.2	161.2	10.8
South-Eastern Asia	138.0	30.7	63.5	10.3
Southern Asia	291.7	24.0	276.4	15.8
Latin America & Carib.	68.5	15.3	37.0	6.1
Oceana	1.0	15.7	1.4	14.0

Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The causes of poverty include poor people's lack of resources, an extremely unequal income distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger itself. As of 2015 (2011 statistics), the World Bank has estimated that there were just over 1 billion poor people in developing countries who live on $1.25 a day or less. This compares with compared with 1.91 billion in 1990, and 1.93 billion in 1981. This means that 17 percent of people in the developing world lived at or below $1.25 a day in 2011, down from 43 percent in 1990 and 52 percent in 1981. (This compares with the FAO estimate above of 791 million people living in chronic undernourishment in developing countries.) Progress has been slower at higher poverty lines. In all, 2.2 billion people lived on less than US $2 a day in 2011, the average poverty line in developing countries and another common measurement of deep deprivation. That is only a slight decline from 2.59 billion in 1981. Progress in poverty reduction has been concentrated in Asia, and especially, East Asia, with the major improvement occurring in China. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people in extreme poverty has increased. The statement that 'poverty is the principal cause of hunger' is, though correct, unsatisfying.

Hunger is also a cause of poverty, and thus of hunger. By causing poor health, small body size, low levels of energy, and reductions in mental functioning, hunger can lead to even greater poverty by reducing people's ability to work and learn, thus leading to even greater hunger.

1.4 billion people in developing countries live on $1.25 a day or less.

Rural areas account for three out of every four people living on less than $1.25 a day.

22,000 children die each day due to conditions of poverty.

Rural Hunger Project partners have access to income-generating workshops, empowering their self-reliance. Our Microfinance Program in Africa provides access to credit, adequate training and instilling in our partners the importance of saving.

Poverty in Africa.

In 1990, 56 percent of Africans lived on under $1.25 a day accounting for 15 percent of those in poverty worldwide. Over the subsequent 20 years, the region’s poverty rate dropped to 48 percent. However, given the superior pace of poverty reduction elsewhere and Africa’s faster population growth, Africa’s share of global poverty doubled. Our baseline scenario anticipates a continuation of these trends: sub-Saharan Africa’s poverty rate is expected to fall further to 24 percent by 2030, representing 300 million people, but its share of global poverty balloons to 82 percent. By 2030, 21 percent of Africa’s population will be poor having stood behind the 70 cent mark today. This rate would be sufficient to lift those currently living on 70 cents or more above the $1.25 a day poverty line by 2030. This level happens to be around the average daily income of the poor in sub-Saharan Africa today. Twenty-two percent of Africans live between the 70 cent and $1.25 mark, while 25 percent live further back on under 70 cents.

The constraint facing these remaining poor can be characterized in two ways.

First, the poor may not be moving fast enough to reach the $1.25 threshold. This is a function of the rate of economic growth in the countries in which they live, and the degree to which this growth is equitable. Historically, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced long stretches of anemic growth. During the lost decades of the 1980s and 1990s, the region grew at just 2 percent a year, which meant that GDP per capita fell given the rate of population growth. Though growth in the region as a whole has improved in recent years, some countries continue to underperform and there are concerns that the benefits of Africa’s growth are not being shared by those near the bottom of the income distribution.

Second, the poor in Africa may start too far behind the poverty line to stand a chance of reaching the $1.25 mark any time soon. Even under an assumption of strong and equitable growth, 20 years may be insufficient to lift these people out of poverty given the distance they have to travel. As critics of the Millennium Development Goals have shown, setting targets in absolute terms risks putting goals out of reach for those starting furthest behind.

Which of these impediments best captures sub-Saharan Africa’s challenge: are the region’s poor moving too slowly or starting too far behind?

To help answer this question, it is useful to first establish some parameters linking past regional trends, today’s circumstances and future prospects.

Over the last decade, sub-Saharan Africa’s economies have together mustered an impressive 5 percent growth a year, or around 3 percent in per capita terms (see Table below). Evidence from household surveys suggests that this has, on average, translated into gains for the poor: of the countries in the region with available data, half saw per capita consumption of the poorest 10 percent of their populations rise by 3 percent or more a year during the period. Forecasts indicate that growth rates should remain high in the foreseeable future, so it is not unreasonable to expect that a 3 percent annual increase in income is sustainable for many of those living in poverty.

This rate would be sufficient to lift those currently living on 70 cents or more above the $1.25 a day poverty line by 2030. This level happens to be around the average daily income of the poor in sub-Saharan Africa today. Twenty-two percent of Africans live between the 70 cent and $1.25 mark, while 25 percent live further back on under 70 cents.

Of course, Africa’s aggregate economic performance masks considerable differences between countries, and the location of the region’s growth engines doesn’t align exactly with the location of its poor. Over the past decade, 11 economies in the region experienced virtually no growth (Benin, Central African Republic, Comoros, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Madagascar and Swaziland), while four economies are expected to stagnate over the coming years based on present forecasts (Comoros, Madagascar, Malawi and Swaziland). For these sluggish performers, the pace of progress is such that living within reach of the poverty line today offers little assurance of escaping poverty in the foreseeable future. Three percent of Africans in 2030 are expected to be poor simply because their country growth rates lag behind regional performance. These individuals start between 70 cents and $1.25 and remain there two decades later. We classify these poor people as moving too slowly. (Head count ratio indicates poverty in the Table)