Hunger: on the front line

In the Middle East, the line is fraying. Convulsed by conflict, the scale of the humanitarian disaster in the region swells by the day. Fighting in Syria, now in its fifth year, has driven nearly 12 million from their home.

Many have sought sanctuary in the crammed refugee camps that dot Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. Sunk in poverty, with few options for work, a WFP stipend – at a maximum of $14 per person, per month – can be their only means of securing food. In Iraq, war has displaced 3 million people. More than half of them rely, at least in part, on the WFP to eat.

In Yemen, the outlook is equally bleak. Ongoing war has starved the country of supplies, and impeded aid. A mix of food shortages, diminished fuel and a lack of clean water has created “the dawn of a perfect storm” for destitute Yemenis, the WFP said in August, with Cousin warning starkly of famine if aid workers were not given urgent access. At last count, 6.1 million people in the Arab state urgently needed food.

“The nature of the work we do is being changed dramatically, by the number of refugees we have in the world, the scale of their needs and the number of crises linked to conflicts,” Cousin tells Philanthropy Age.

“In the case of a quick onset emergency – a typhoon, or an earthquake – you provide emergency relief, and then you begin recovery. With war, there is no recovery. The same event occurs every day.”

But how do you solve a problem like world hunger? It is a question that has preoccupied Chicago-born Cousin since she took charge of the WFP in 2012. Her term has been a baptism of fire. On her watch, the agency has grappled with West Africa’s Ebola epidemic, a post-typhoon Philippines, earthquake-hit Nepal and the largest global refugee crisis in decades, alongside protracted emergencies in South Sudan and the Central African Republic, to name just two. On any given day, the WFP is firefighting on multiple fronts.

Set against this backdrop, its stated goal of ‘zero hunger’ is, to say the least, audacious – but, insists Cousin, one that is possible to achieve.

“The reality is we know what will end hunger, and it requires one tool that we don’t have today, which is global public will,” she says. “The will to universally address the issues of hunger. It is a solvable problem.”

Hunger is a febrile thing. An affliction shared across much of the developing world, its presence is a trigger for uprisings and conflict, and a fetter to economic growth.

Globally, nearly 800 million people do not have enough food, with poor nutrition the cause of nearly half of deaths in children under five. In Asia alone, two-thirds of the population is affected by hunger. Around the world, lack of food kills more people each year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

Few know this better than Cousin. She recalls a visit to western Ethiopia’s Gambella region, home to thousands of refugees who have fled years of fighting in South Sudan. One mother had walked for three weeks, accompanied by her four children, to reach the camp. In the absence of food, and carrying her baby, she had fed them water lilies during the journey.

“I was talking to a physician, when I heard a cry. It was a wail,” remembers Cousin. “It was this mother. And the physician said: ‘We lost one. She didn’t get here fast enough.’ The baby, not even two months old, died. That mother did everything in her power to save her child, and still it wasn’t enough. That sticks with you.”

As the global humanitarian landscape evolves, so too has the WFP. The agency today is engaged in vastly more than just food relief. In the Middle East and other regions, it has rolled out cash and vouchers in place of traditional food rations; more nimble tools that allow beneficiaries to buy food and goods themselves, and help to shore up local markets.

WFP itself uses its purchasing clout to back smallholder farmers, last year buying 81 per cent of its food in developing markets.

Resilience-building activities, which see vulnerable people given food assistance, in exchange for building or repairing vital community assets – anything from roads, to planting forests – reached 12.7 million people last year. More than 75,500 schools are on the WFP’s books. In 2014, some 17 million children received meals or take-home rations from the agency. The scale of its operations are staggering, and often unseen.

Another shift has been the use of technology to modernise and streamline its approach. Cousin has rolled out an SMS and voice call system that lets the WFP assess needs in distressed locations, without sending staff, helping to trim time and money. When disaster does strike, the agency now benefits from a network of supply depots around the world, including Dubai, able to deploy aid at a moment’s notice.

“Hunger is a need of every person in the world,” says Cousin. “I’ve said it before; every culture, every religion in the world believes we should feed the hungry. It is at the base of our humanity that people should not go hungry.”

For all the heartwrenching aspects of her role, Cousin still sees the opportunities. In the last 25 years, the number of hungry people globally has shrunk from 1 billion to 795 million, and the prevalence of undernourishment has almost halved. With determination, she says, eradication of world hunger is within reach for the current generation.

“Let me tell you the best part of my job,” she says. “Wherever I go, it’s the children. Kids give you hope. No matter what they’ve been through, you give them some food, and they will run and laugh and play. They believe that life’s going to be ok.” – PA