We need collective action to reach a zero-hunger world
When I was eight years old, a severe drought devastated my small village in Zimbabwe. A blistering heatwave dried up our river; it destroyed our crops, killed our livestock and left us starving. One day I was so weak from hunger that I collapsed onto the ground. In fact, in my young mind, I thought I was going to die. Fortunately, a fellow African who worked for the United Nations found me. She gave me a bowl of porridge and saved my life.
Several decades later, it is unfathomable that hunger, the very same issue that almost took my life, remains rampant. Even as we grow enough food to feed everyone as a society, one in nine people still goes to bed hungry every night, and malnutrition remains the leading cause of death and illness globally.
So, how might we solve global hunger? Beyond addressing conflict and other structural and systemic root causes, we need to change the way we think of food — not as a commodity, but as a fundamental right — and, consequently, the way we produce and consume it. During my childhood in the early 1980s, famine was primarily perceived as an “African problem”. Today, hunger and extreme hunger continue to disproportionately impact the African continent as well as developing countries that bear the brunt of the effects of climate change. Droughts — like the one that hit my own community — and other
such as floods, storms and heatwaves are increasingly threatening lives and livelihoods. The countries most affected by these phenomena are the ones that contribute the least towards greenhouse emissions.. One third of the food produced in the world is either lost due to poor storage or wasted at the consumer end in rich countries. In most cases this happens when food goes uneaten or is left to spoil in fridges and kitchen cabinets.
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