MACCORMACK: Ethiopia: Warning for children worldwide

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COMMENTARY:

Millions of children worldwide face a gathering storm that poses a greater threat this summer than any tsunami, cyclone or hurricane.

A perilous combination of factors - including soaring energy prices, bad weather (possibly linked with climate change), poor harvests, and dwindling food stocks - has created the most dangerous hunger crisis in decades. Adding to the crisis: a growing demand for biofuels that is further depleting the food supply.

I have just returned from Ethiopia where severe malnutrition, especially among preschool-age children, is beginning to spike alarmingly. Save the Children, working closely with the Ethiopian government and international donors, is ramping up efforts to help 900,000 Ethiopians, including 325,000 children.

Five years ago, when I visited Ethiopia during its last major food crisis, tents teaming with hungry children grabbed the world's attention. Things are different this time - a cause for both concern and hope.

In 2003, severe drought conspired with ages-old subsistence farming technology, small land-holding plots, poor market access, high fertility rates, and inadequate social protection networks to plunge Ethiopia into a severe food crisis. The bad news is that the current crisis is exacerbated by new factors that connect what is happening in Ethiopia with equally vexing challenges in countries as dissimilar as Haiti, Egypt and Tajikistan.

No longer is localized drought the only threat. Like children around the world, Ethiopian children feel the impact of the steep, global increase in food prices that will likely persist for years. Ten pounds of corn flour in Ethiopia, thanks to this new combination of factors, now costs 5 times as much as it did just three years ago, putting unbearable demands on limited household budgets.

American families typically spend on food 10 cents of every dollar that reaches the household; for families in developing countries, food typically consumes between 50 percent and 80 percent of their household budget.

As I witnessed in Ethiopia, poor families there and elsewhere are resorting to coping strategies that will lead to long-term harm - such as eating less protein-rich foods, skipping meals, pulling children out of school, selling off livestock and family assets and even foregoing health care.

This crisis in rising food and energy prices threatens to undermine improved child survival and school enrollment gains we have seen in recent decades. The World Bank estimates these price increases could reverse seven years of progress in overall poverty reduction worldwide, and push more than 100 million people into poverty. For Save the Children, this food price shock - especially when coupled with localized droughts - represents a fundamental threat to the well-being of vulnerable children and women. Children living with HIV and AIDS, conflict and instability are most at risk.

But the news is not all bad. Compared to 2003, Ethiopia has more trained health professionals and volunteers and a government-established network of therapeutic care sites. The increased availability of portable foods such as Plumpy'Nut (a vitamin-fortified peanut paste) has significantly streamlined emergency responses in Ethiopia as elsewhere. That means more lives can and are being saved.

On a global scale, the good news is that G-8 Summit leaders, the World Bank and the United Nations recognize the challenge and the international community has begun to respond. U.N. agencies, for example, endorsed a Comprehensive Framework for Action at a May summit that provides a platform for cooperation.

The stakes are high: The well-being of vulnerable children as well as continued development of countries less well-off hang in the balance. So the United States and other leaders must drive hard and fast this nascent international response. Among the top priorities for near-term action are:

c Ensuring that the World Food Program and other aid agencies have adequate ongoing funds to support governments to meet new and existing needs for food assistance.

c Supporting development or expansion of social protection and basic nutrition programs, focused on the needs of the poorest and most food insecure families.

c Committing to boost dramatically investment in agriculture in the world's poor countries to reverse decades of neglect.

c Re-examining policies toward biofuels in G-8 countries.

Traditional food aid will not conquer hunger. Emergency assistance, trade, climate change and other policies must also be revamped and better integrated.

When the world's leaders gather at the United Nations in late September to review progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals, it is essential they commit to more decisive action to overcome hunger. A genuine solution also requires investment by world leaders to move that bold development agenda forward. Success will mean saving 6 million children a year from preventable deaths and ensuring all children have access to a basic education. It can and must be done.

Charles MacCormack is president and chief executive officer of Save the Children, based in Westport, Conn.