The Saddest Site on the Net: Can Poverty.com and the UN Eradicate Hunger Alone?

The first thing noted when visiting www.poverty.com, are pictures of children steadily popping up across a map of the world, being added one – by – one to a running total for the current hour entitled “Hunger Deaths This Hour.” The number never stops. It never even pauses.

According to the UN, every three and a half seconds, a person starves to death in our world. These deaths are mostly children. That’s about 25,000 people a day, according to the site.

Though there is plenty of food in the world for everyone, the site continues, the problem is that the hungry people are prisoners of extreme poverty. They do not have the money to buy enough food with which to nourish themselves, in order to work toward acquiring more food. They become malnourished, sick, and their families enter a downward spiral until probably liberated by death.

At the Millennium Summit in 2000, the largest gathering of world leaders in all of history met and adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, according to the UN Millennium Projects historical site, accessible through a Poverty.com link. They committed their nations to a new global partnership for reducing extreme poverty. They also set out a series of time-bound targets that will deadline in 2015. These are known as the Millennium Developmental Goals, or MDGs, and can be found at http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/.

The Millennium Developmental Goals

Goal One: Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty

Goal Two: Achieve universal primary education

Goal Three: Promote gender equality and empower women

Goal Four: Reduce child mortality

Goal Five: Improve maternal health

Goal Six: Combat HIV/Aids, malaria, and other diseases

Goal Seven: Ensure environmental sustainability

Goal Eight: Develop a global partnership for development

To Eradicate Hunger

The United Nation’s devised a way to not only combat hunger, but to eradicate it worldwide. Of course, the cost of this effort is around $195 billion dollars a year. Twenty – two developed countries around the globe have pledged 0.7% of their national income to aid in meeting this figure. Though some countries are slow to meet this pledge, the overall plan does seem achievable. The United States has pledged .22 cents for every $100 earned in the country each year, and Norway’s percentage is the highest, at .93 cents per every $100 earned, being one of the five countries to have already met the goal.

In September 2000, the site reports, the 189 countries of the United Nations unanimously agreed to “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty,” specifically hunger and the “major diseases that afflict humanity.”

Following, in 2002, the world’s most able countries committed to the 0.7% pledge to reach the goal and eradicate hunger worldwide. This was during the Monterrey Conference, attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, U.S. President George Bush, French president Jacques Chirac, and other world leaders. According to the site, later that year, the same 22 countries re-affirmed their agreements to reach the goal.

But that was a little under five years ago. That is close to the actual lifetime of the children who are dying. So what’s the hold-up?

In all our attempts at humanitarian efforts, all our liberating wars in which we seem to be on a mission to free the world of oppression in all forms, all of our banter about liberty and the rights of mankind to live the way they so choose, we Americans sure don’t seem to be doing enough to help the smallest and most vulnerable victims. Why has our goal not been met in five years’ time? There is not even a scheduled date for our goal to be met.

Without reference to the ongoing debate over whose job it is to eradicate evils and injustice in the world that only serves to promote action and excuse inaction whenever politicians so desire, the bottom line is that poverty is continuing to starve children to death around the globe.

Being a mother myself, I will not even try to picture having to see my two daughters slowly and painfully die do to the fact that this progressive world just will not break bread with my village.

What You Can Do

By clicking “NEXT” on the first two pages of the site, eventually a printable letter to your government can be viewed. The suggestion on the page is to click on the country to which you are a citizen, print up the following letter, and drop it in the mail along with whatever dollar amount is associated with your country’s pledge. For instance, in the United State’s, a citizen sending this important letter to their government should include with it a quarter. This shows support and the desire for your government to meet the goal they set forth years ago.

During a time when all eyes are focused on the war in the Middle east, perhaps a few more letters will remind our government that the people of this country still desire to meet the pledge we agreed to years ago. Perhaps a scheduled date could at least be calculated, planning on when we could meet our pledged goal. Until then, of course, the faces on the saddest site on the internet continue to elucidate the powerful grip that poverty has on our world.

Visit the site. Print the letter. Send your quarter.

Sources: United Nations World Food Program (WFP), Oxfam, UNICEF

The Millennium Developmental Goals: http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/