Food Crisis a “Silent Tsunami” for Children
For immediate release: April 23, 2008
WASHINGTON—Global Action for Children advocates for the world’s most vulnerable children, those most susceptible to disease, poverty, hunger; those least likely to have access to education and healthcare; those who may have lost one or both parents to the AIDS epidemic. It is these highly vulnerable children who are exponentially affected by rising food prices. Josette Sheeran, World Food Programme Executive Director, noted yesterday that "What we are seeing now is affecting more people on every continent, destroying even more livelihoods and the nutrition losses will hurt children for a lifetime." She referred to the staggeringly high food prices as the "silent tsunami."
Rising food prices have led the WFP to suspend a school feeding program in Cambodia, leaving 450,000 children high and dry come May unless additional funding can be located elsewhere. WFP programs in many other countries are facing similar difficult decisions.
According to Peter Timmer, a Center for Global Development scholar, "This is the most serious problem facing the world food economy since 1973-74, when a million people in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh alone died prematurely as a result of a rice crisis. World Bank President Robert Zoellick suggested last week that high food prices risked pushing 100 million people back below the poverty line, wiping out seven years of progress." Timmer also cited rising infant and child mortality rates and rising deaths of weakened adults as a likely result of the food crisis.
For further information on the food crisis, please visit the following links:
Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/americas/18food.html?scp=5&sq=&st=nyt
Center for Global Development opinion piece: http://www.cgdev.org/content/opinion/detail/15820/
Learn how the food crisis is affecting HIV-positive mothers and their children in Kenya: http://www.wfp.org/english/?ModuleID=139&Key=851&elemId=1
