From: sen@sun18.vlsi (Subhajit Sen)
Subject: Somalia Isn't The Only Horror
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 23:50:56 GMT

       S O M A L I A     I S N ' T     T H E     O N L Y     H O R R O R


			Gary Bellamy
		     The Globe and Mail
			   Ottawa



[ This article has been reproduced without permission from The Globe and Mail,
Toronto, Friday, October 16, 1992. Owing to the urgency of the problem of hunger
and malnourishment in most parts of the Third World and even parts of the Second
and the First world, it is hoped that the reproduction of this article without 
permission will be forgiven.
				- Subhajit Sen, Univ. Of Waterloo]

______________________________________________________________________________

"Each day, without making news, 40,000 children around the world die from hunger
-related causes. Each year, more than 500 million human beings are estimated to 
die from the effects of malnutrition."

"Relatively few of these deaths are related to famine. Many occur in countries
that produce plenty of food, even export it. In fact, according to the 
United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the world produces
more than enough food to meet the needs of everyone on the planet. Yet
FAO estimates that 780 million people are chronically undernourished. How
is this possible?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------





Today is World Food Day, set aside to focus public attention on the
preventable tragedy of hunger.

This year, on the day, millions of people in Somalia risk starvation
from a famine exacerbated by civil war. Despite international food aid, death
tolls in many parts of the country continue rising because supplies  aren't
reaching those who need them. Relief supplies are routinely hijacked by
armed bandits to sell on the black market. The world watches, seemingly
helpless to end the suffering.

But the horror of Somalia obscures the tragedy of everyday hunger. Each
day, without making news, 40,000 children around the world die from hunger
-related causes. Each year, more than 500 million human beings are estimated to 
die from the effects of malnutrition.

Relatively few of these deaths are related to famine. Many occur in countries
that produce plenty of food, even export it. In fact, according to the 
United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the world produces
more than enough food to meet the needs of everyone on the planet. Yet
FAO estimates that 780 million people are chronically undernourished. How
is this possible?

Hunger can be related many factors, including natural disasters, war, disease
and seasonal food shortages. Yet whether it be rural Bangladesh or downtown
Halifax, the underlying cause is almost universally the same - poverty.
Poverty leaves people vulnerable to the afflictions that contribute
to hunger and means that millions of people cannot afford to buy
enough food to meet their basic needs.

Those horrified by Somalia should be equally horrified by a global economic
system that abandons so many people to the effects of chronic hunger. In
both cases, something can and must be done - but the roots of the problem
must be addressed.

Food aid is a vital emergency response to famine. Yet many of the countries
that are now supplying food to Somalia also supplied arms to the conflict
that has made this famine so terrible. According to the U.S. State Department
Arms Control and Disarmanent Agency, there were $200-million (U.S.)
worth of arms sold to Somalia (not including military aid) between 1984 and 1988.
The top suppliers were the United States ($60-million), Italy($20-million),
France($10-million), China($10-million) and other countries ($100-million).
Canada did not rank among these top suppliers.

Huge military spending by Third World governments ($34.5-billion for arms
imports in 1988) saps treasuries of money that could be spent on food.
The arms fuel conflicts that hinder food production, destroy infra-structure
and make distributing emergency aid dangerous, or impossible. If the world
were truly committed to alleviating the suffering caused by famine, it would
restrict the arms trade that in large measure creates that famine.

In the same way, more must be done to address poverty. It's not a question
of simply throwing more aid dollars at the Third World. To begin with,
the allocation of development assistance is skewed, sometimes determined
more by the priorities of the donor than by the needs of the recipient.

For instance, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) notes that
South Asia receives roughly $5 per person, while countries in the Middle East
(with more that three times South Asia's per capita income) get $55 per person.
The UNDP also calculates that, on average, less than 6.5 percent of
country-to-country aid is earmarked for human priority concerns: basic
education, primary health care, safe drinking water, family planning and
nutrition.

While developed countries give aid to the Third World with one hand, they
take away more with the other. According to the UNDP, restricted  or unequal
access to the global markets costs developing countries $500-billion(U.S.)
annually - 10 times what they receive in foreign assistance. Foreign
debt payments take an additional transfer of wealth from poor to rich
nations of $150-billion - three times what is received in aid. Desperate
for foreign currency to meet debt payments, developing countries
are forced to devote more and more of their arable land to cash crops,
instead of food for their own people.

The debt crisis has reached a stage where many countries must take out
new loans to repay old ones. As a condition of new loans, they are forced
to adopt "structural adjustment programs". While these ensure that 
cash-strapped governemnts make their interest payments, they have a
devastating effect on poor people as spending on health, education,
food subsidies and support for small farmers is cut - in favour of subsidies
to export industries.

>From Dec. 5 to 11, countries from around the world will assemble in Rome
for the International Conference on Nutrition. During that week, hundreds
of thousands of people in Somalia and elsewhere will die because they
can't get enough to eat. If such a global gathering is to accomplish
anything, world leaders must learn the broader lesson from the Somali
famine:
	Simply put, ending hunger requires more than food aid or
improved agricultural output. Building food security - so that all people,
at all times, have both physical and economic access to enough food for
an active, healthy life - demands changes in the priorities of international
finance, commerce and development assistance. Ending hunger needs to be a 
priority for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the Group
of Seven industrial countries.

[Gary Bellamy is communications officer of the World Food Day Association of
Canada]