Data on underweight children indicate that over 40 per cent of the children were underweight in most South Asian countries in 1990; the rate was over 60 per cent in Bangladesh and India... India achieved a reduction of nearly 19 percentage points in the 1990s, although progress in addressing the underweight problem was slow in most other subregional countries. In South-East Asia, the rates of child undernourishment were generally lower, while the rates of reductions were slow, except Thailand. Exceptionally, China... the rate of child malnutrition having fallen from 17.4 per cent in 1990 to 9 per cent in 1999.

... South Asia had the highest percentage of the undernourished in the population (27 per cent) and East Asia the lowest (16 per cent) during the early 1990s. Progress in tackling this issue has been somewhat slow and uneven in all the subregions. For Asia and the Pacific as a whole, the percentage of the undernourished fell from 21 per cent in the early 1990s to 17 per cent in the second half of the 1990s. However, the incidence of undernourishment has apparently worsened among the Pacific island economies."

Undernourishment is a central manifestation of poverty. It also deepens other aspects of poverty, by reducing the capacity for work and resistance to disease, and by affecting children's mental development and educational achievement. According to the World Agriculture: towards 2015/2030 published by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, there is enough land, soil, water and potential for food production to feed everybody in the world. Why do so many countries have widespread famine and so many people die of hunger?

VIOLENCE

Whether within countries across Asia or at the international level, there are conflicts, armed struggles and wars. All these kinds of violence not only bring disaster to people by bullets, but also contribute to and reinforce poverty.

Conflict or War

• After visiting the northeast Sri Lankan area of Wanni, which was closed as part of the conflict area between the Government and rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a Hong Kong charity official shared that in a refugee camp, "people were sitting around trees and pretending it was a classroom" and "there was no clinic or community facilities". "The children there have never seen electricity." he said. "They've never seen a phone. A few months ago, some commercial products went in and it was the first time they had seen soft drinks." (South China Morning Post, 3 June 2002)
• Human Development Report 1997 published by the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) showed that in 1995, the South Asia spent 15 billion on the military, that is "more than what it would cost annually to achieve basic health and nutrition for all world wide". "East Asia spent 51 billion, nine times the annual amount needed to ensure basic education for all."

AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL

It is true that there are unavoidable natural causes such as years of drought and flooding. How serious the problem is and how long it lasts, however, can be affected by how the governments allocate its national resources and distribute emergency aid.

Allocation of Resource

• 60% of farmland in Cambodia was unworkable because of the droughts and flooding in 2000 and 2001. The government estimated that to solve the food crisis, at least 2,000 tonnes of rice were needed immediately. A statement calling on the government to postpone the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit, which would be hosted in Cambodia in November 2002, stated that "The Asean summit is not a top priority for our victimised people", and "Today millions of Khmer people are hungry, but the government spends millions of dollars to organise the Asean summit". (South China Morning Post, 23 October 2002)

Government Policy

• In the province of Negros Occidental, Philippines, which has been a leading sugar producing province since the 1860’s, more than 20,000 families of farm workers have been living in poverty since the 1980's because of the very low sugar tariffs and cheap imported sugar. Their livelihood is worsened by the non-implementation of minimum wages and benefits among sugar workers and the non-distribution of land to the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) beneficiaries. (FIAN)
• A study by the UN World Food Program (WFP) showed that in India, more than a third of urban children suffer from extreme malnutrition and 38 per sent are below their normal weight. Cities of India are full of migrant families seeking jobs to escape poverty in their villages. "As Indian economist and Nobel prizewinner Amartya Sen has pointed out, famines are not caused by a shortage of food. They are caused by government apathy. India is producing more than enough food to feed itself and enjoys a massive surplus. Government figures show that granaries are so full that 10 per cent of the food is eaten by rodents and insents. The reason why people go hungry is lack of access to this food because the authorities fail to identify where hunger is a problem and even when they do, they take too long getting the food there." (South China Morning Post, 25 October 2002)

AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL

Unfair Trade Conditions

• "UN estimates show that the world's rich countries spend US$300 billion ... a year on farm subsidies. This leads to depressed world prices and makes it almost impossible for farmers from developing countries to compete in the global market." (International Herald Tribune 15 June 2002)

Foreign Loans

• Figures issued in 2000 showed that "the Philippines has an international debt of more than US$52 billion which continues to grow. To pay only the interest on this sum the government spends 40% of the GNP, money which could be better used for education, health and social services". (Kung Kao Po, 19 August 2001)

Insufficient Foreign Aid

• "The agency's [World Food Program] new director, James Morris, is seeking new sources of contribution, from countries such as China, Russia and Mexio; but even so, he reckons the agency at best may collect $1 billion less than it needs for feeding programs this year. More and more, developmental food programs that were once the World Food Program's main focus are being overtaken by humanitarian emergencies, creating an ever-shifting cycle of crises and emergency appeals for donations that frequently fall short of need. ... Rich nations store up $100 billion in surplus food obtained from subsidized farmers; Europe and Japan decline to dispose of theirs through aid programs, and complain in trade talks of dumping when the United States makes such donations. Just one percent of this stockpile, which mostly goes to waste, would fill the yawning hunger gap this year in southern Africa, Afganistan and everywhere else." (International Herald Tribune 3-4 August 2002)

-- The United Nations

Since 1993, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty has been observed annually on 17 October to increase public awareness of the need to eradicate poverty, particularly in developing countries. The originator of such idea was Father Joseph Wresinski, founder of the International Movement ATD Fourth World. At a mass in Paris, France, on 17 October 1987, a commemorative stone was unveiled bearing the words, "Wherever men and women are condemned to live in extreme poverty, human rights are violated. To come together to ensure that these rights be respected is our solemn duty."

The General Assembly in December 1995 then proclaimed the First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006) and in December 1996 declared the theme for the Decade as a whole to be "Eradicating poverty is an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind".

Millennium Summit held in New Yock in September 2000 adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration. It contains a number of quantitative goals covering all major areas related to the well-being of people, including extreme poverty, education, health, gender equality and the environment. The Secretary General in his report to the fifty-sixth session of the General Assembly submitted the "Road Map towards the Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration" in which included an agreed set of eight development goals, also known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

"Each country must find the right mix of policies -- the one that suits its local conditions. And the people of each country must insist that those policies be applied.

Let no one think that this applies only to developing countries. The developed countries, too, must ensure that no part of their own population falls short. And they also have a special global responsibility. They must deliver what they have promised: to open their markets fully to the products of developing countries; to let them compete in the global market on fair terms; and to provide much more generous development assistance. Without these things, many developing countries will be unable to reach the Millennium Goals, however hard they try."

Quoted from the message issued by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
on the occasion of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty in 2002

We are obliged to support the poor, and not just from our surplus

In the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes (n. 69), the Second Vatican Council emphasised that everyone has the right to have a part of the earth's goods that is sufficient for each and his or her dependents.

It is then our duty to guarantee that everybody in the world can enjoy a share of the earthly goods sufficient for oneself and one's family.

If you want peace, reach out to the poor

In his message for the XXVI Annual World Day of Prayer for Peace on 1 January 1993, Pope John Paul II invited us to reflect together on the many different links between the two realities - PEACE and POVERTY.

He especially call attention to the threat to peace posed by poverty, especially when it becomes destitution.

Several disturbing problems, which beset the poor and hence threaten peace, were identified:

• Problem of foreign debt
• Cultivation for drug-production among the poor
• Mass migrations caused by situations of grave economic difficulty in some countries

Development and human progress to defeat hunger in the world

A Study week on the "Food Needs of the Developing World in the Early Twenty-first Century" was organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences from 27 to 30 January of 1999. It focused on the problem of "hunger in the world" and the solutions which can be found to this problem in the realm of agriculture. With "food insecurity" at the centre of discussion, the most recent studies on the subject were presented and debated during the four days of the conference. The participants also heard a series of objectives which were proposed in order to overcome the difficulties identified.

Making the trade environment friendly to development and the fight against extreme poverty

An Intervention was made in the Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) by the Holy See as an observer in December 1999. It expressed concern over the continued poverty and marginalization of the poor or less developed countries under the ruled-based Multilateral Trade System (MTS). It also took the opportunity to submit some concerns and suggestions on the issues at stake.

Review of Poverty Concepts and Indicators
A paper publisbed by the United Nations Development Programme to present an overview of different concepts of poverty and approaches to its measurement

Catholic Social Teaching and Poverty Eradication:
Key Concepts and Issues
A presentation by Fr. Peter Henriot, S.J. of the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection containing clarification of the key concepts of poverty and a conceptual framework that both clarifies the meaning of poverty eradication and situates it within the principles of Catholic social teaching

Toward Eradication of Extreme Poverty:
Long-term Partnership with the Poorest People
A contribution of the International Movement ATD Fourth World to the 58th session of ESCAP in May 2002

Asia Partnership for Human Development

Caritas Internationalis

Catholic Agency for Overseas Development

Oxfam International