State of the Union must sound alarm on hunger
President Biden’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday should bring attention to the escalating global hunger crisis.
With conflict and climate change taking its toll globally, there is an ominous warning. The UN World Food Program says that “A record 349 million people across 79 countries are facing acute food insecurity — up from 287 million in 2021.”
Millions of people worldwide are on the brink of starvation. They are in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya where massive drought is forcing people to walk for miles to search for food and water. There is not much to find. People are now dying of starvation in the Horn of Africa. Relief agencies desperately need more funding.
Severe hunger emergencies are also ongoing in Haiti, Yemen, D.R. Congo, South Sudan, Afghanistan and many other countries. The war in Ukraine has led to increased hunger in that country, but also threatens the supply of wheat from there. The U.S. is helping transport grain as part of an agreement between Russia, Ukraine and Turkey. As long as the war continues Ukraine’s precious supply of food will be at risk.
For the United States to build peace globally, there must be relief for those suffering in hunger. As George Marshall said “Hunger and insecurity are the worst enemies of peace.”
It’s vital President Biden raise the issue of world hunger in the State of the Union because it rarely gets attention. We need to highlight hunger to get government and the public more tuned in and ready to take action.
What works at home to fight hunger also can work abroad. As the United States tries to provide universal free school meals to all children at home, we should realize the difficulty other nations have providing this food.
Millions of children around the world could be saved if they had access to free school meals. We should never underestimate the power school feeding programs can have across the globe.
School meals were a big part of the recovery from World War II for many countries. In fact, General Lucius Clay said school lunches from the United States saved German youth after the war.
Today, we need to support the McGovern-Dole program that provides school lunches around the world. The U.S. Food for Peace program also supports school meals. Both initiatives should see increased funding because of the global hunger emergency and the desperate need for school meals.
Also vital are the infant nutrition programs that fight deadly malnutrition. In many countries small children starve to death, but if there were enough funding relief agencies could save more kids.
If we could provide enough funding so that every nation in need had infant feeding and school lunch programs, hunger would be dealt a major blow. But nutrition programs are often off the radar when it comes to foreign policy.
As President Dwight Eisenhower once said “the world cups its ear to hear the rattling of rockets. It listens less closely to the sounds of peace and wellbeing that emanate from the slow but steady improvement in world health and nutrition.” Eisenhower started the Food for Peace program to escalate the fight against hunger.
Now today President Biden must rally action against global hunger, encouraging Congress to increase life-saving funding. The public also needs to be engaged advocating for feeding the hungry.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the “Four Freedoms” in his 1941 State of the Union, the third was “Freedom from Want.”
Today we must stand up for the same ideals and work toward a world free from hunger.
William Lambers is an author who partnered with the UN World Food Program on the book Ending World Hunger. His writings have been published by The NY Times, Newsweek, History News Network, Chicago Sun-Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and many other news outlets.