I have seen the deep suffering of the Somali people with my own eyes, who are looking for safety and food. Refugee children who are dying and their mothers who have become walking skeletons, are faced with the choice of which child to save, Antonio Gutiérrez.
There are many reasons why hunger and poverty in the world not only persist, but are also currently on the rise:
Personal and national debt.
Third world debt should be cancelled: “Firstly, several governments want to spend more money on poverty reduction but they lose that money in paying off their debts. Secondly, the lenders knew that they gave it to dictators or oppressive regimes and thus, they are responsible for their actions, not the people living in the countries of those regimes. […] Also, many lenders knew that a great proportion of the money would sometimes be stolen through corruption. […] Many of the debts were signed with unfair terms,” Jubilee Debt Campaign and Debt of developing countries.
War creates hunger and hunger unleashes conflicts. “75% of the world’s malnourished people live in conflict zones and 492 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian aid. War destroys markets and livelihoods, drives mass population displacement, and causes increased risk of acute malnutrition,” Action Against Hunger.
Lack of schooling and poor education. “We recognize that poverty and the lack of education, which are often the effects of underdevelopment, are the primary causes of hunger and undernutrition,” 1992 International Conference on Nutrition.
A greedy economic culture that stands for selfish ambitions and immediate gratification -I am worth it. I deserve it! I want it all, and I want it now. It is obsessed with short-term profits rather than long-term sustainable growth, and couldn’t care less about the environmental and human impact of its actions.
Natural disasters. They are becoming more frequent and severe. They are exacerbated by climate change and disproportionately affect poor countries.
Financial market speculation on food prices. It is immoral and obscene to profit from hunger, and yet, it is a terrible reality.
Others: racism and discrimination (“Being mistreated at school, on the job, in health care and beyond, translates to lower wages and exclusion from society. When employers discriminate, people of color make lower wages than white people. When health-care providers discriminate, people cannot get the health care they need, and when the courts and the police are biased, they are more likely to put our family members behind bars, which damages their prospects for economic security,” Feeding America), drug abuse, high medical bills, divorce and parents leaving the family, unemployment, teenage pregnancy, etc.