From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Hunger, Poverty and the Environment
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 08:23:23 GMT

/** gen.newsletter: 136.6 **/
** Written  5:02 pm  Aug 28, 1992 by ecologycntr in cdp:gen.newsletter **
Hunger, Poverty and the Environment

By Joel Rubinstein

The recent Earth Summit in Rio de  Janeiro was held because of
growing recognition of the connection between environmental
problems, poverty and hunger, and development. The influence of
poverty on the environment is explained in UNICEF's State of the
World's Children 1991 report:

For the majority of mankind, the greatest environmental threat is
not progress but poverty. Poverty and the lack of alternatives
drive rural people to the burning of forests, the tilling of
marginal lands, the over-dependence of finding grazing for cattle,
the over-cutting of trees for fuel. Poverty and lack of confidence
in the future are also engines of rapid population growth.

This last point deserves clarification. We know that the
population of the world is growing rapidly, and that the growth
rates are fastest in the poorest countries. If we could find a way
to end hunger and poverty-related deaths in poor countries,
wouldn't this just accelerate the population explosion? Precisely
the contrary is true. Reducing the child death rate is necessary
in order to cut the birth rate. In poor countries, where there is
no Social Security, children are the primary oldage security.
Parents have to have large families to ensure that some of their
children will survive to take care of them when they get old. But
as the children stop dying, parents have fewer children. In fact,
no country has managed to have significant reductions in their
birth rate without first reducing the child death rate.

Although famines such as the famous ones in Ethiopia and Somalia
receive more publicity, chronic persistent hunger kills more
people. The United Nations has quoted 1.5 million as the number of
likely deaths in Somalia if the world does not act right away; yet
15 million children under age 5 will die this year, most of
preventable causes. Children are the main victims of both famines
and chronic persistent hunger.

If poverty is the greatest environmental threat to the majority of
mankind, what can we do about it?  At the World Summit for
Children, September 29-30, 1990, President Bush joined 71 Heads of
State at the UN in unanimous approval of the World Declaration on
the Survival, Protection and Development of Children. This
declaration promised by the year 2000 to reduce infant mortality
by at least one third in every country, to reduce maternal
mortality by half, and to provide universal access to safe
drinking water, sanitation facilities, and basic education.
Keeping the promises made at the World Summit for Children would
save at least 50 million children in the 1990s, and break the
feedback loops of poverty and the environment.

What will it cost to keep these promises to the world's children?
UNICEF estimates that the worldwide costs will average $20 billion
per year in the 1990s, and that the poor countries will contribute
twothirds of this. Thus, a fair share for the United States would
be less than $2 billion per year during the 1990s.  The money is
available. For 1992 the military component of the United States
foreign aid budget is $8 billion. Recognizing the reduced military
security needs following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
Warsaw Pact, the Bush Administration has proposed a $600 million
cut in military foreign aid for 1993.  But much greater cuts are
possible.

The promise of the World Summit for Children will not be fulfilled
by wishing. Citizen activism and lobbying will be needed in both
rich countries and the developing world. RESULTS, an international
anti-hunger lobby, is leading the Keeping the Promise Campaign to
inform the public and keep the promises of the World Summit for
Children on the political agenda. RESULTS has prepared lesson
plans for Keeping the Promise activities in schools, from
kindergarten through university, scheduled for the week of October
12-16. RESULTS is supporting the Children's Defense Fund's (CDF)
National Observance of Children's Sabbaths October 16-18. Worship
materials for Christian, Jewish and Moslem services are available
from RESULTS; please call (202) 546-1900 to obtain the lesson
plans, worship materials, or for more information. CDF's free
"Guide for the National Observances of Children's Sabbaths" for
Catholic, African American, other Christian, and Jewish worship is
available from Shannon Daley, Children's Defense Fund, 25 E St.
NW, Washington DC 20001.

RESULTS has had over a decade of striking legislative success in
mustering political support for programs like UNICEF and Child
Survival, loan programs to help poor people in developing
countries start small businesses to end their own poverty, and
domestic anti-poverty children's programs including WIC and Head
Start. There are six RESULTS groups in the Bay Area meeting
monthly to create the political will to end hunger. For further
information about RESULTS or the Keeping the Promise Campaign,
please call Joel Rubinstein at (510) 655-5541.  
** End of text from cdp:gen.newsletter **

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