Hunger

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 2008 (2005 statistics), the World Bank has estimated that there were an estimated 1,345 million poor people in developing countries who live on $1.25 a day or less.³ This compares to the later FAO estimate of  1.02 billion undernourished people.  Extreme poverty remains an alarming problem in the world’s developing regions, despite some progress that reduced "dollar--now $1.25-- a day" poverty from (an estimated) 1900 million people in 1981, a reduction of 29 percent over the period. 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.  Why then are (so many) people poor?  The next section summarizes Hunger Notes  answer.
Harmful economic systems are the principal cause of poverty and hunger. Hunger Notes believes that the principal underlying cause of poverty and hunger is the ordinary operation of the economic and political systems in the world. Essentially control over resources and income is based on military, political and economic power that typically ends up in the hands of a minority, who live well, while those at the bottom barely survive, if they do. We have described the operation of this system in more detail in our special section on Harmful economic systems. 
Conflict as a cause of hunger and poverty. At the end of 2005, the global number of refugees was at its lowest level in almost a quarter of a century. Despite some large-scale repatriation movements, the last three years have witnessed a significant increase in refugee numbers, due primarily to the violence taking place in Iraq and Somalia. By the end of 2008, the total number of refugees under UNHCR’s mandate exceeded 10 million. The number of conflict-induced internally displaced persons (IDPs) reached some 26 million worldwide at the end of the year . Providing exact figures on the number of stateless people is extremely difficult  But, important, (relatively) visible though it is, and anguishing for those involved conflict is less important as poverty (and its causes) as a cause of hunger. (Using the statistics above 1.02 billion people suffer from chronic hunger while 36 million people are displaced [UNHCR 2008])

Resource: www.worldhunger.org

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I did not grow up in a third world country and have to experience true starvation and hunger, but this is a topic that resonates deeply with me. God knows I have gone many a day, a week, and years worrying about how I would afford my next meal. I have struggled to eat in a healthy manner for all of my life and I do believe that it has stunted my physical development and perhaps harmed me in other ways. I am still trying to have children and I worry that this may have something to do with it.  I married a man who has a good and healthy weight and it was my hope that his healthy habits would transfer onto my future children.

Many of my current students live by the two square meals that are provided at breakfast and lunch at our schools. I know that in a nearby district there are students who get all three square meals provided by the school. Hunger is real and it is in our backyard-and I don't understand why it has to be this way when there are people who are sitting upon billions and billions of dollars in this country. I don't think that is what the American Dream was meant to be about.

Access to Healthy Water

It is important that families around the would have access to clean, healthy water.  This should be a fundamental right of anyone and governments have the responsibility to protect the water supply from contamination and pollutants and to ensure that everyone has access to water from where they live.

This is an issue in third world countries and it is one of grave concern. In my state of Pennsylvania, hydraulic fracking is a new technique being employed to extract natural gas from the underlying rock. I have hear testimony from many people who have allowed fracking by energy companies on their land and how subsequently how their drinking water has become polluted. Their water has become polluted to the extent that cattle and other livestock are dying or being born with severe birth defects. This is a current concern in my state and lawmakers are scrambling to decide if they stand on the behalf of clean water and increased regulation or if they stand on the behalf of job creation-it is one or the other from their perspective.

I believe that it is important to protect our natural resources and to make sure that the environment is not degraded by our actions. I believe it is a simple problem of physics: that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It can also be looked upon as a simple law of thermodynamics: that in a closed system everything tends to move toward equilibrium. It can also be seen in Buddhism, Christianity, and on and on…They are all the same principle, that what one does has consequences heaped back upon oneself in some way or another. It is a simple idea really, and it doesn’t take great minds to see that we need to take care of the living earth around us to have a sustainable future for our children and ourselves. It is a part of being a responsible person with a conscience.

According to water.org clean water statistics from around the world are staggering. 3.5 million people around the world each year die from a water related disease. 884 million people around the world do not have access to clean water. Women around the world spend about 200 million hours a day searching for clean water. The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns. People living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city. And an American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.

"In wealthy parts of the world, people turn on a faucet and out pours abundant, clean water. Yet nearly 900 million people in the world have no access to clean water, and 2.5 billion people have no safe way to dispose of human waste—many defecate in open fields or near the same rivers they drink from. Dirty water and lack of a toilet and proper hygiene kill 3.3 million people around the world annually, most of them children under age five. Here in southern Ethiopia, and in northern Kenya, a lack of rain over the past few years has made even dirty water elusive." 

-Tina Rosenberg

From an article entitled The Burden of Thirst from National Geographic written by Tina Rosenberg, photos by Lynn Johnson

References

1. 2006 United Nations Human Development Report.