The movement to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty for millions of people around the world is not a lost cause, says the president of Bread for the World.
In fact, despite the population explosion, the number of people who are undernourished in the world is slightly lower now than it was in the early 1970s, according to David Beckmann. He spoke Feb. 19 at the Ethics Without Borders conference, organized by the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission, in Austin, Texas.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese have escaped from extreme poverty and hunger in the last decade. Even African countries lacking much economic growth have made rapid progress in terms of child mortality rates and the number of children in school, Beckmann said. "Based on that … the nations of the world in the year 2000 adopted the Millennium Development Goals."
The United Nations formed eight Millennium Development Goals, which range from halving hunger and extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, to be met by 2015. President Bush has embraced the endeavor, Beckmann said.
A 2006 U.N. report showed some progress on the goal of halving poverty and hunger. In 1990, more than 28 percent of the developing world’s population (1.2 billion people) lived in extreme poverty. By 2002, the proportion was 19 percent. In Asia, over the same period, the number of people living on less than $1 a day dropped by nearly a quarter of a billion people.
Bread for the World is a public-policy lobbying group based in Washington.
Beckmann, a Lutheran clergyman and economist who once worked for the World Bank, said what excites him is the possibility to overcome hunger and poverty in this century. It’s a fixable problem in our time, he said.
Unfortunately much of the poverty in parts of Asia and Africa remains unchanged, the 2006 millennium report noted. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the number of people living in extreme poverty increased by 140 million from 1990 to 2002. Beckmann said more than 850 million people worldwide suffer from chronic hunger. In the United States alone, more than 35 million people often run out of food.
Action against such poverty necessarily includes political means, Beckmann said. If Christians are serious about eradicating hunger, part of that action should be through implementing policies and changing laws that "keep people poor." He suggested extending the food stamps program and providing debt reduction for the world’s poorest countries.
On Feb. 14, the Senate approved $463.5 billion to cover all domestic and foreign aid spending for the fiscal year 2007. Poverty-focused assistance received a $1.4 billion increase over the amount of money dedicated to it in 2006. (ABP)
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