Let us become the zero hunger generation

Peace, security and sustainable development the dividends of ridding the world of a scourge

The Third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa last month was a rare opportunity for high-level representatives from governments, civil society and the private sector to reflect on and debate the future architecture of development financing.

The timing of the conference was particularly important, coming just months before the next United Nations General Assembly, when member nations are expected to endorse an ambitious new package of sustainable development goals to be achieved by 2030.

Before the conference, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, or FAO, together with the International Fund for Agriculture Development and the World Food Programme estimated the cost of eradicating hunger at $267 billion of additional resources each year until 2030.

Despite the seemingly high cost, the reality is that the cost of inaction is far higher - some estimates put the annual cost of malnutrition to the global economy at several trillion dollars. Let me put this figure in a wider context. Global annual military expenditure is an estimated $1.8 trillion, while within the OECD almost $260 billion is spent a year on agricultural support in member countries.

Put another way, $267 billion corresponds to just 0.3 percent of world economic output. Is this really too high a price to pay to help almost 800 million hungry people?

Sustainably eradicating hunger through pro-poor investment, particularly in agriculture and in rural areas, makes good economic sense. Various studies have demonstrated that there is no other sector in which the returns on investment in terms of poverty alleviation and employment are more effective. No other sector has this power to lift people out of poverty.

More than 70 percent of the poor live in rural areas and derive their livelihoods from agriculture, livestock, forestry or fisheries. A significant proportion of the poor are under- or unemployed young people, particularly in developing countries. Simply closing the gender gap in agriculture would reduce the number of hungry people by 12 to 17 percent. In other words, ensuring women have better access to land, inputs and training would mean that between 100 million and 140 million people are no longer hungry.

The financing of social protection programs needs an allocation of $47 billion, that is, transfers of money to the people who live on less than $1.25 a day (the poverty line defined by the UN), so they have access to basic needs, especially in terms of food, health and education. And, in parallel, $80 billion in investment to the poorest enables them to generate their own income and become independent. In both cases, most of the funding must be directed to rural areas, nearly $85 billion in total because in Africa, 78 percent of the poor are in rural areas.

At FAO we believe that eradicating hunger is possible. We believe that food systems and agriculture can be a source of wealth and well-being for all, especially the poorest. And we believe that all of this can be achieved during our life time. We can and we should be the "zero hunger generation".

Eradicating hunger requires that we build on succesful local and international experience. The starting point in eradicating hunger is breaking the cycle of poverty, hunger and low productivity in agriculture. The road ahead demands prudent investment in social protection to ensure the poor can access sufficient, nutritious food, which alone would facilitate the eradication of hunger even before 2030. At the same time, investment in agriculture and rural development is critical to ensure the eradication of hunger is sustainable.

We estimate that with an additional annual investment of $116 billion in social protections plus $151 billion in productive investments ($105 billion of which should be in agriculture and rural areas), the world will be sustainably free of hunger. This translates to an annual investment of about $160 per hungry person - the cost of a mobile phone or a sheep. The wealthier part of the world can easily afford this. Let us not lose this opportunity.

As the adage says, "A hungry man is an angry man". Eradicating hunger is not only cost-effective, but it is also a vital investment in peace, security and sustainable development that benefits us all. A failure to make these additional investments will ultimately result in much higher costs for the global economy.

Zero hunger in the world is a global public good. And this is what the participants at the Addis Ababa conference wish to communicate - let history remember us as the "zero hunger generation".

The author is assistant director-general at the FAO for international technical cooperation. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily

(China Daily Africa Weekly 08/07/2015 page11)