World hunger, the crisis inside the economic crisis (Sonni Efron)

Created by : Francis Goodwin View profile

  As food prices skyrocket, the jobs and wages of the poorest are being devastated. But will the developed world act when it's focused on averting a financial meltdown?

 

  March 12, 2009 (Los Angeles Times) -- The economic crisis has now spread from Wall Street to Main Street to the places where there are no streets.

  In slums and shacks around the world, hunger is gnawing again as job opportunities shrink but food prices do not. Global cereal prices are 71 percent higher than they were in 2005, according to the International Monetary Fund, but the wages of many workers are falling.

  This is a disaster for the bottom billion, the one out of six humans living on less than $2 a day. But as always, the poor have a problem getting our attention -- especially when the rich have lost half their wealth.

  Today's attention deficit is this: Starving children with bloated bellies make for horrific video footage, and the world opens its wallet. But chronic malnutrition, degradation and misery -- suffering that causes real pain but falls short of mass famine -- is being pushed off the front pages by the frightening global economic news. 

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