Poverty & hunger

Where does this issue fit into the Millennium Goals?

Millennium Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger – This goal calls for reducing by half the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day. It also calls for halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

How does this issue affect people?

No one wants to go hungry.

On a larger scale, entire rural populations that are poor and undernourished are prone to diseases including AIDS and Malaria, struggle to send their children to school, or to buy medicines and enough food. Starvation and disease eventually causes death.

In rich countries, we too have a pivotal role to play in reducing poverty. This begins with humanitarian Aid to relieve extreme hunger, but must also include strategies with best potential to achieve long term improvements – changes to international trade.

Consider this… Agricultural trade is currently worth $674 billion a year. Developing countries have 98% of the world’s farming population (2.5 billion people depend on it to earn a living), but capture only a third of this trade. Africa’s share is barely 4%.

This inequality is largely enforced by rich countries who rig the international trade rules in their own national interest. So, we must consider our own actions and understand that we are all inextricably involved in solving this problem.

Information on this page was researched and collated with the help of Oxfam Australia and the United Nations Website