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by Oscar E. V. Fernando

More and more production to stave off hunger was the search, before the quake. It has to be obviously more pronounced now. Hunger is described as an uneasy sensation leading to an exhausted condition, caused by want of food and good drinking water.

A mother's despair of hopelessness unable to breast feed a child due to malnutrition and the emaciated, fly ridden and nose running faces in Ethiopia and Somalia filled with that look of exhaustion depict hunger.

Malnutrition caused by hunger can lead to mental retardation and even physical stunting of children and is the cause for about 24,000 deaths every day, out of which about 18,000 are children. This is under normal conditions. At least a million displaced will face starvation and malnutrition in our own country in the near future.

With sufficient food to go around, population increase is not the reason for deaths. The real reasons, for malnutrition are food-distribution problems, natural disasters, governments' short sighted policies for immediate political gains, civil unrest, inequitable trade policies, ignorance, and most of all selfishness and greed.

"Bluntly stated, the problem is not so much a lack of food as a lack of political will". Contends - The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Hunger and poverty are twins in a trap, impoverishing the most potent capital available for productivity-human capital, and this can cause havoc, bigger than the entrepreneurial, financial, technological assets put together and is a definite pointer towards terrorism. This was gradually breeding before the quake.

The potential is enormous now-accompanied by looting and crime in a new dimension unknown to us before the quake, unless some in our country open their narrow eyes to look beyond the walls of the well they are wallowing within!

Countries' undergoing transition from centrally-planned economies to market-based economies or those tinkering with both at the same time or alternatively, are experiencing or will soon experience rising levels of poverty and hunger.

This will be aggravated further if all politicians concerned do not stop this foolhardiness dead on their fast track of clamour for power.

"The situation with regard to hunger has improved in Asia over the last decade, but the slow progress in further improvement seems to be the lack of political will and not a lack of food," says the United Nations. Lack of that will to compromise on the extreme-isms".

Several causes contribute to malnutrition. Alienation of agricultural lands for other purposes-lack of physical and social infrastructure such as speedy roadways and skills formation - easing international trade barriers - economic drain for communal and religious wars and terrorism -lack of export markets to prevent glutting of production - insufficient education in farm management - stable financial procurement - proper irrigation facilities - conservation of water avoiding top soil erosion - providing farmers small extents of land ownership, seeds, and tools to grow food - disaster management in cases of floods, droughts, pests - provision of investment capital for production - promoting private foreign investment - providing finance for nutrition, education, housing and family planning - encouraging open international trade and access to international markets - designing, implementing and monitoring projects etc.

The basic requirement for all these is funding. Collecting coins in a till is a thrifty habit that needs to be inculcated in children - but to dream that this type of funding is what is needed at the moment is to dream that long-long dream!

Poor countries that have abundant natural resources do not have funds whereas those developed countries have both. In alleviation of poverty and hunger reference is made to 'developed' and 'developing' nations. It is relevant to note in this 'halt of the fast track' much needed in the present devastation in our country, that a 'developing' country like Sri Lanka was once exporting food - earning the epithet 'the granary of the east', But;

Historical, social and political forces such as colonisation of India and Sri Lanka and this together with the slave trade in Africa, disrupted patterns of food production, replacing fertile and prosperous peasant farms with plantations designed to provide food commodities such as sugar, coffee, cocoa, tea, rubber, and cotton for export to the colonial countries.

Some of these developing countries still have European-owned plantations and farms, where a variety of products are grown for export instead of the native crops with which they were self-sufficient.

As a result, these countries still linger with the trauma of invasions. This situation is made worse by some foreign missionaries whose zeal is misunderstood as hunger and poverty are not the most fertile grounds for evangelisation. The so-called developing countries especially Sri Lanka;

Must make a clear distinction between these, and those institutions working to eradicate hunger and poverty of which there are several. This dishevelling of thought is extreme importance in our present tragedy.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, more commonly known as the World Bank holds out as their main objective, provision of funds for developing countries.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a specialised agency of the United Nations whose purpose is to promote international monetary cooperation to facilitate the expansion of international trade.

But several opine that it passes too much burden on the poorer classes by insisting on the withdrawal of subsidies-insisting on governments to spend less on consumption that could result in malnutrition. This opinion is correct to a great extent and what really is the defence of IMF on this pragmatic issue?

Oxfam American is an organisation that invests privately raised funds and technical expertise to eradicate hunger and poverty by educating the public on productivity, etc.

Two organisations have been formed by the United Nations focused on feeding the hungry. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is the branch that focuses mainly on food supply to eradicate hunger and poverty.

The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is dedicated to improve food production, reduce malnutrition, and provide agricultural training and employment in developing countries.

Educational Concerns for Hunger Organisation (ECHO) is working towards educating and helping the poor and hungry to survive and is a non-profit making Christian organisation and their main goal is to educate and assist small farmers in developing countries to live on what they have in their surrounding areas and exchanging nutrient seeds to prevent malnutrition.

Those politicians on the fast track have to realise and realise it very clearly that the aim of the World Bank funding is to develop a country on macro economic basis as opposed to Communist economies.

But both the donors and recipients should note that success is best where closing the gap between the rich and the poor does not reduce the incentives to the rich to be productive as well as ensure that the poor in this transitional period do not suffer unduly.

It is a question of balancing between killing the Goose that lays the golden egg, whilst at the same time ensuring that too many golden eggs do not accumulate in the hands of a few at the expense of the poor!

These developing countries may even consider setting up a special ministry to ensure and monitor that such NGOs do not influence or interfere with traditional social and religious roots of the nation.

The World Bank and affiliated organisations too must take serious note of this extremely sensitive social problem and the debacles in India, Sri Lanka and Argentina in recent times - in their experiments in funding, for the mutual benefit of both.

At this juncture of our country we must have a deep dialogue between those donors aforesaid and all concerned social units of the country especially all varieties of politicians.

The restoration of the tanks project in Sri Lanka must earn the attention of the World Bank with an intention of turning the villages into liberal, viable and attractive economic zones for the youth to be gainfully employed with new technologies of agriculture, as hand tools and the bullock cart are not the best of the available technologies today to divert rivers, etc., to feed the tanks without which the digging would have been in vain except to conserve the water for a shortwhile after heavy rains.

It is time that the southerners at grassroots level befriend the donor institutions like their counterpart in the North, dispelling mistrust and hatred and make the whole of Sri Lanka from Dondra Head to Point Pedro green with food instead of being green with jealousy!

Let this be an occasion for all to change that bitter lemon into a drink of lemonade. It only takes a little sugar to make that difference!

For those interested in the altruistic concerns of the World Bank and most of its related links, or at least in their efforts to make their aims altruistic, a recommended reading is 'Mind Heart and Soul in the Fight Against Poverty' by Katherine Marshall and Lucy Keough, published by the World Bank itself in 2004.

Email: [email protected].

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