Lives are cheaper than votes
You’re going to be hearing a lot of big numbers in the next seven weeks. There will be promises of multi- billion- dollar tax cuts, multi- year spending programs and whopping surpluses far into the future.
Before the electoral bidding begins, consider this: It costs 19 cents a day to feed a child in Africa. Jim Morris, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, slipped into Ottawa last week with a simple message: “ There will be many issues in the election, but don’t forget the humanitarian agenda.” The 62- year- old former Indianapolis business executive doesn’t have the glamour of a rock star like Bono or the eloquence of a statesman like Stephen Lewis. But he does tell a powerful story.
Achild with enough to eat for the first five years of his or her life will be strong enough to survive measles and diarrhea, alert enough to learn and motivated enough to stay in school.
If it’s a girl, she’ll be 50 per cent less likely to become HIV positive. She’ll have children when she’s 20, not 12. There will be two or three of them, not eight or 10.
If it’s a boy, he’ll be far less likely to become a child soldier. He’ll be far more likely to find work and support a family.
“ Nutrition is fundamental to lifting people out of poverty,” he says.
Unlike many development activists, Morris is not haunted or angry. He knows Canada devotes just 0.28 per cent of its income to the world’s poorest nations, but praises Paul Martin’s government for its groundbreaking work on micronutrients ( food fortified with vitamins.) He knows his own country spends a mere 0.16 per cent of its income on foreign aid, but calls President George W. Bush “ as much a humanitarian person as anyone I’ve ever known.”
This is part diplomacy and part shrewd management. In straight dollar terms, the United States is the World Food Program’s biggest contributor. Canada ranks third. (In per capita terms, Canada falls to 7th place, the U. S. to 9th.) The U. N. agency couldn’t get along without the $ 1.3 billion the two countries provide. But Morris also believes he can accomplish more by making potential donors understand the need — and the affordability of meeting it — than by hectoring or shaming them. So he talks about what’s possible, not how stingy North Americans are.
For pennies a day, the World Food Program can de- worm a child and double the caloric value of whatever he or she eats. By offering people food for work, it can encourage tree planting, irrigation and the decommissioning of weapons. By feeding children in school, it can give them a future.
After almost four years as head of the World Food Program, Morris can rattle off statistics so fast that it’s hard for a note taker to keep up. There are 852 million undernourished people in the world of whom 300 million are children. Every day, 25,000 people die of hunger. The vast majority — 18,000 — are children. The World Food Program provides food to 113 million people in 80 countries. But the numbers, as Morris knows, can seem overwhelming, almost numbing.
“ I don’t know what to do about that,” he says, struggling to make the crisis real.
“ I’ve held babies in my arms in a lot of places who I knew wouldn’t be there the next week. Out in the field, I see 15year- old girls, who can’t be more than 3 feet tall — the same size as my 8- yearold granddaughter — serving as mothers to half a dozen brothers and sisters. I remember playing catch with one little boy, not long ago and when he turned and walked away . . .” He leaves the sentence unfinished.
That pre- election tax refund you’ll get in the new year — $350 for the average Canadian — would pay for a year’s worth of healthy meals for 10 African children. The cancellation of one public opinion poll — the government commissioned 458 last year — would free up enough money to buy more than 35,000 kilos of high- energy biscuits for starving kids. A single day’s campaign spending by all of Canada’s political parties would cover the cost of 255 million bowls of rice in the developing world. A remarkable thing happened to Morris recently. He got a phone call from a man named Paul Tergat. The 36- year- old Kenyan said he’d participated in one of the agency’s school feeding programs as a child. He wanted to thank Morris and become a World Food Program volunteer.
This month, Tergat won the New York City marathon.
Very few politicians get that kind of payback. Carol Goar’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.