We invite you to read, comment,
disseminate, the new brochure of the the International
Alliance against Hunger
To download the brochure please
click
here.
For Arabic click
here.
The International Alliance against Hunger has one very simple and clear goal –
to persuade people all around the world and their governments to make
eradicating hunger and malnutrition their top priority.
Is it not absurd, when, for the first time in human history, the world is able
to grow more than enough food for all its inhabitants, that one in 8 people
should still not have enough to eat and almost one in 3 is malnourished? Still
more absurd is the gross waste of food, with between one third and half the food
bought by families in leading “developed” countries being thrown away by them
uneaten.
Most of the solutions to hunger and malnutrition are well known, tried and
tested – and cheap. Most governments are simply not applying them on a scale
that comes close to matching the size of the problem. As a result of this
failure, millions of people, including countless numbers of young children, are
needlessly dying early every year.
And few people seem to care……..
Ensuring adequate nutrition is the simplest way of enabling all people to lead a
full life, free of the agony of not knowing where the next meal will come from
and of the fear of constant illness and early death. Programmes cost little and
pay for themselves in economic growth, because when people are well fed they can
reach their full intellectual and physical potential and so contribute to the
social and economic development of their community and their country.
If our generation fails to make sure that humanity’s most basic need – the need
for food - is met, when the means to do so exist, we will be rightly condemned
as both foolish and short-sighted by our children for getting our priorities
badly wrong.
Stop Wasting Food: Save a
Life
International Women’s Day, 8th March 2008
Dear Friend,
Please pause for a moment on International Womens’ Day –
Saturday 8th March 2008 – to think whether you can do
something simple that saves you money, helps to save
someone else’s life and is good for the environment.
Read this, and, if you agree, please forward it to all
your friends, women and men, to your favourite
restaurant and to the shops where you buy food!
Facts
1. For the first time in human history, the
world can feed all its people – all 6.6 billion of us –
but fails to do so.
2. One in 8 fellow humans is still short of food –
every day. Almost one third of the world’s population
suffers from malnutrition: nearly as many over-eat as
under-eat.
3. Poor nutrition in the womb and infancy needlessly
causes one third of children’s deaths in developing
countries.
4. This year world food demand temporarily exceeds
supplies. This has led to a sharp rise in global food
prices.
5. High food prices are great news for farmers around
the world and will stimulate greater production in
future. But now price gains are being captured by
speculators.
6. High prices also mean that millions more poor
people cannot buy the food they need for a healthy life
for themselves and their children: the higher the price,
the more people who will die young or fall ill.
7. One reason for the rise in food demand and prices
is the huge growth in food wastage in developed
countries. In USA, Canada and some European countries,
families throw out between one third and half the food
that they buy.
8. This waste is “criminal” because, in a globalised
market, the upward pressure on prices kills people.
Act Now!
1. Set yourself a zero food waste goal. Don’t be
tempted to buy and cook more food than you need; store
it safely before it goes off; stop and think before you
throw out any edible food – can I create a tasty soup,
stew, curry, risotto, pasta sauce, fruit smoothie…..?
Start today!
2. Learn more about how to end hunger and
malnutrition or cut food waste (click on
www.iaahp.net
for links).
3. Raise your voice to encourage your government to
do everything it can to eradicate hunger and
malnutrition: it can be done, and everyone wins.
