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A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*
7:00 A.M. E.T. Jan. 23, 2013
Sharmila Chaudhari feeds her daughter Sanjana, 19 months, at the
Nutrition Rehabilitation Home in Dhangadhi, Nepal. Forty-one percent of
Nepali children younger than age 5 suffer from malnutrition.
Web-only photos by Laura Elizabeth Pohl/
Bread for the World.
Sometimes, reducing childhood malnutrition and mortality can be as easy as substituting one crop for another.
That has been the result of a United Methodist initiative
in the Kamina area of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in which
farmers were introduced to moringa and soybean as replacements for
nutrient-poor cassava.
For June Kim, an executive with the United Methodist Committee on
Relief who serves as the agency’s staff coordinator for the Kamina
initiative, such grassroots efforts are key to achieving measurable progress in international goals to eradicate hunger and poverty.
National nutrition strategies are important, she said, but international aid money also must be allotted to implement those plans.
“We have to balance the need for a ‘national plan’ and the direct
need of the people,” said Kim. “The more dollars we can put down at the
community level, the more of a direct impact we can have at the health
and livelihoods of those we are trying to help.”
An examination of what are known as the “Millennium Development Goals”
regarding hunger and poverty and discussion of a framework for action
in the years to come is at the heart of the 2013 Hunger Report from the
Bread for the World Institute, “Within Reach: Global Development Goals.”
The report’s “bulls-eye” recommendation: End hunger and poverty in every country in the world by 2040.
Religious leaders urge world leaders to embrace this “bold” goal.
“With concerted effort, a system to hold all nations accountable, and
God’s help, we believe this is an achievable goal,” they said in a
statement in the report.
Among the statement’s signers are Susie Johnson, public policy
director for United Methodist Women, and the Rev. John McCullough, a
United Methodist pastor and president of Church World Service. Both
Church World Service and UMCOR are sponsors of the 2013 report.
People of many ages share a community meal in San Miguel Huautla,
Oaxaca, Mexico. Young people in rural areas of Mexico like this one
often choose to emigrate to the United States to work because there are
few opportunities at home.
‘A people of visions’
Carter Echols, staff for congregational engagement and church
relations for Bread for the World, noted that many congregations already
have focused on the Millennium Development Goals “so it’s language they understand.”
The point of the report, she said, is to build on previous
conversations, emphasizing the importance of having the next set of
goals to eradicate hunger and poverty.
Even if such goals seem huge, “we (Christians) are a people of
visions and prophetic visions,” Echols added. “We come from a history of
promise and this is a faithful way of doing things.”
From Kim’s perspective, the report offers a “really good snapshot”
of why the goals are important and what more needs to be done.
The 2013 hunger report says the goals have made some measurable
successes in the poorest countries, but also shows “the majority of
poor people are no longer in the poorest countries,” Echols pointed out.
“They’re embedded in middle-income countries.”
The report’s tables and graphs also show that:
- Extreme poverty has fallen in every part of the developing world.
- Sub-Saharan African countries made the most human development improvements between 2000 and 2011.
- Growth in agriculture surpassed growth in other sectors for reducing poverty.
- The global total of children younger than 5 stunted because of malnutrition has dropped 35 percent, to about 165 million.
- Eighty-three percent of those who lack access to improved drinking water sources live in rural areas.
Liberato Bautista, an executive with the United Methodist Board of
Church and Society based at the Church Center for the United Nations,
noted that while the Millennium Development Goals have become a
well-publicized vehicle for discussing hunger and poverty, such
popularity “did not necessarily translate into lasting achievements.”
The “most minimum” goals, easier to implement, “were chosen over the
longer-term struggle for enacting human rights,” he said. But those
goals were designed to raise the poor from extreme poverty to normal
poverty. Sustainability is the key to real progress beyond 2015, he
said.
“Sustainability ensures no one is dependent on the other people’s
charity,” Bautista explained. “Empowerment points to the enablement of
peoples to find meaningful ways to participate in the civic, political
and economic life of their communities.”
To truly make change, U.S. churches must challenge the way the
government ties aid money to foreign policy rather than need, Kim said.
“What we’re encouraging United Methodists to do is move beyond
charity,” she explained, noting that Americans love their own rights but
don’t think about the fact that basic human rights are violated in
other places every day. “Can we talk about global development absent
those conflicts and absent those root causes?”
Christian study guide
While the report, which includes a Christian study guide,
will not change, Echols said, Bread for the World Institute will add
resources for congregations on the interactive website throughout the
year.
Session 6 of the study guide, related to Chapter 4, focuses on the
need for the United States to “exercise leadership” on hunger and
poverty goals, both globally and at home. The report shows an increase
in U.S. poverty from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 15 percent in 2011. “One
of the highest poverty rates in the industrialized world is in the
United States,” Echols pointed out.
Setting national goals to lift U.S. citizens out of poverty —
providing a free secondary school education to every child at the turn
of the 20th century and President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” in
the 1960s — succeeded in the past, the report points out.
Bautista said the book he edited and published
in late 2011, “Meditations and Devotions on the Millennium Development
Goals: A Prayerful Guide,” is designed to help United Methodists and
others address the challenge of combining practical goals and
measurable targets with ethical and moral requirements.
The 232-page guide, which may be purchased online, has a deed tied to each daily devotional to help church groups or individuals “move study into action,” he said.
*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service multimedia reporter based in New York. Follow her at http://twitter.com/umcscribe.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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