Second , it is often said that the most abundant asset the poor have is their labour, which they can use to earn a living. However, if hunger means that their potential labour power is ineffective, the poor do not really have an asset and will thus remain trapped in hunger and poverty. Third , assistance to the hungry is often viewed, wrongly, as a mere consumption expenditure. If hunger is a constraint to the development of the poor, its removal is certainly an investment in building self-reliance. For the abjectly poor, the daily struggle of finding food for the family pushes aside any consideration of long-term development.
Hunger is the first threshold to cross on the way out of poverty.
Fourth , economic growth that provides lasting benefits to the poor is the surest path to sustainable poverty alleviation. However, for a large number of the hungry poor, there can be no growth without first overcoming today's hunger. These people cannot wait until nutritional benefits trickle down from tomorrow's macro-economic growth. And even if economies grow, the hungry poor are the worst-placed to take advantage of it. All rights reserved.