“It’s the role of the state and not the level of wealth, that determines progress on hunger,” said Anne Jellema, ActionAid’s policy director, launching the scorecard report Who’s Really Fighting Hunger?
“Every six seconds a child dies from hunger, but this scandal could easily be ended if all governments took determined action.”[i]
ActionAid has investigated what 51 governments are doing to tackle the billion hungry. The scorecard report shows that China, ranked second out of the developing countries, cut hunger numbers by 58 million in ten years through strong state support for smallholder farmers. By contrast, in liberalizing India, thirty million more people have joined the ranks of the hungry since the mid-nineties.
Brazil comes out top in the rankings of developing countries, having cut child malnutrition by 73 per cent in just six years through extensive investment in smallholder farmers and a strong package of social welfare policies.
Ghana and Malawi, ranking third and fifth among developing countries, have demonstrated that with political will there is a way. In just a few years, Malawi moved from recurring famines to food surpluses by ramping up state support to agriculture.
Developed countries fare even worse in the report. The United States scores woeful 8 out of 100 on hunger eradication, while Italy scores just 19, mostly because of their miserly aid to agriculture. Overall, donor countries reduced aid to agriculture budgets from 16.8 per cent of all official development spending in 1979, to just 3.4 per cent in 2004, despite signing up to the UN goal to halve hunger by 2015. The US and EU also promote biofuels, which displace food crops. Germany spends a staggering $23 per person per year on biofuel subsidies.
In Vietnam, on the 16th Oct, 2009, more than 1000 people attend the event held in the University of Labor and Society, Hanoi to respond to Hunger Free campaign which its theme this year is “Investing on the Sustainable Agriculture and Small size livelihood model”. At the same time, there are tens of event also were organized in many developments areas of Actionaid Vietnam with more than 100 hundreds of discussion (via Reflect circles and community development groups). After the national event in Hanoi, a workshop launching the Report on the “sustainable livelihood models happen with the participants are the scientist, the government and local authorities, the representative from Father Land Front, young groups, etc. The event successfully end with more than 5 thousands of signatures are collected to express their consensus on the fighting against the poverty in Vietnam.