World poverty - nature, breadth, and solution

Here are a number of facts about poverty.

What strikes me about poverty is it the solution in the long term involves economic development and cultural changes.  There's no reason for people to be hungry given the resources we have in the world.  Of course cultural changes are the hardest to make.

1. World hunger refers to the want or scarcity of food in a country, aggregated to the world level. The related technical terms (e.g., those used in medicine) are malnutrition or undernutrition, both of which indicate a lack of some or all nutritional elements necessary for human health.

2. According to the United Nations World Food Programme, 1 in 8 people in the world do not get enough food to lead an active and healthy life. Over 800 million worldwide -- equal to the population of the U.S. and the 28 member states of the European Union -- are hungry.

3. Asia has the largest share of the world's hungry people (some 552 million), but Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the highest prevalence of undernourishment with one in four Africans (24.8 per cent) estimated to be hungry.

4. Hunger and malnutrition are the greatest threats to global health—more so than even AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.

5. Children who are poorly nourished suffer up to 160 days of illness each year. Poor nutrition plays a role in at least half of the 10.9 million child deaths each year--five million deaths.

6. Undernutrition magnifies the effect of every disease, including measles and malaria. The estimated proportions of deaths in which undernutrition is an underlying cause are roughly similar for diarrhea (61%), malaria (57%), pneumonia (52%), and measles (45%).

7. One in four of the world's children are stunted (below the fifth percentile of the reference population in height for age). In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three. 80 percent of the world's stunted children live in just 20 countries.

8. The world currently produces enough food for everyone on the planet to have at least 2,720 calories per person per day (the equivalent of 13.5 cups of rice). The number of calories each person needs every day varies depending on age and activity level, but the recommended average is 2,500 calories for men and 2,000 calories for women.

9. According to the U.N. hunger report, economic growth is key for progress in hunger reduction. But growth may not lead to more and better jobs and incomes for all, unless policies specifically target the poor, especially those in rural areas. "In poor countries, hunger and poverty reduction will only be achieved with growth that is not only sustained, but also broadly shared," the report noted. Still, continued economic growth in developing countries has improved incomes and access to food. Recent pick-up in agricultural productivity growth, supported by increased public investment, and renewed interest of private investors in agriculture, has improved food availability.

India says "take a hike" to UN AIDS establishment

The second largest country in the world, India decided to adopt one of the only programs which has successfully reduced the AIDS infection rate, The Ugandan ABC program which focuses on abstinence and fidelity in marriage. What's interesting is India's decision is a major rebuke to the UN AIDS establishment which pressured Uganda to drop the program, despite a major drop in HIV infection rates, in favor of the condoms approach.

According to a story on www.lifesites.com,

A spokesperson for India's National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) told the media yesterday that sex-education taught to students will focus on abstinence and fidelity, not condoms and 'safer sex.'

This announcement came after a meeting involving officials from NCERT and the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), who, under the guidance of director-general Sujatha Rao, have advocated fighting AIDS with values, not condoms.

"There will be no mention of condom or safe sex in the revised module on life-skill education program. But we will be focusing on the aspirations of the youngsters and will also talk about being faithful to one's partner and abstinence. There should be no hypocrisy on the subject," said Rao, as reported by the Indian press.

"The youngsters need to get the right information. The children are growing in an unsafe environment," she added.

Originally a module was created to introduce sex-education into Indian schools to fight the spread of AIDS that promoted condoms and 'safer sex' techniques. The module, however, which included a flipchart with graphic illustrations of the human anatomy, was met with a nationwide uproar that led to seven states and many educationalists rejecting it.

The module was formulated under the direction of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), which is known for dumping condoms into developing nations as a means of fighting AIDS, despite hard data that shows no country has ever significantly reduced their AIDS rate using this method.

I think this is a sign of sanity in response to the tragic AIDS/HIV epidemic. Some think India's decision will embolden other countries to endorse what works - abstinence outside of marriage, fidelity within. And hopefully, this will give impetus in the United States and Minnesota to develop a morally and educationally sound approach to the AIDS epidemic. The answer is promoting healthy behavior not merely trying to mitigate the dangerous consequences of bad behavior.