In this blog post, we’ll take a brief look at the reality of malnutrition, which affects about 12% of the global population, and the activities of the WFP (World Food Programme).
The Reality of Malnutrition
In the 21st century, technology has enabled us to produce large quantities of crops with minimal effort. As a result, we can easily find fresh produce as well as a wide variety of processed foods without much trouble. Unlike us, who live happily in a world of food abundance thanks to these technological advancements, there are still countless people starving in other parts of the world. We call these starving people “the hungry.” Deprived of sufficient nutrients, the hungry are unable to lead the healthy, active lives we take for granted—exercising, walking around, laughing, and conversing.
We’ve all seen photos of emaciated African children, their bodies reduced to little more than skin and bones. Contrary to what we often think, the problems of malnutrition and hunger are not limited to Africa alone. People in Syria who have lost their homes to war and rely on food rations, and people in Pakistan who have suffered severe damage from earthquakes—more people around the world are suffering from hunger than we realize. According to statistics from the World Food Programme, a UN agency, the number of people suffering from hunger is 842 million. Compared to the global population of over 7 billion, this might seem like a small number—about 12%—but 842 million is not a small number. An enormous number of people, roughly 16 times the population of South Korea, are struggling due to malnutrition. Among those 842 million people, 3.1 million children under the age of five lose their lives every year.
So, what are the causes of this malnutrition and undernutrition that forces so many people to live in suffering? There is not just a single cause. As mentioned earlier, people suffer from malnutrition for various reasons, including insufficient nutrient intake due to underdeveloped agricultural technology, war, natural disasters such as droughts and earthquakes, and disease. Severe malnutrition significantly weakens the body’s immune system, making people vulnerable to various diseases. In particular, children who suffer from malnutrition at a young age do not receive the nutrients necessary for growth, leading to difficulties in both physical and mental development. To prevent malnutrition, one must maintain strict health management in daily life, live in a healthy environment, and consistently ensure the quality and quantity of food consumed. However, the majority of people suffering from malnutrition live in developing countries, and for them, creating and maintaining such conditions while managing their health is no easy task.
WFP’s Activities and Efforts to Address the Issue
For this reason, the World Food Programme (WFP), mentioned earlier, extends a helping hand directly to areas where malnutrition is rampant, such as developing countries and war zones. While the WHO may be familiar to us, the WFP is likely a less familiar name. The World Food Programme (WFP) is a UN agency whose primary mission is to “eradicate hunger.” It focuses on saving lives by providing food and nutrients to those suffering from malnutrition. At the same time, it works not only to prevent malnutrition but also to reduce the number of people suffering from hunger by securing future food resources.
To achieve these goals, it operates various programs, one of which is providing meals to schoolchildren. Based on the premise that “education is the most effective way to break the cycle of poverty,” the school feeding program helps children who previously could not attend school because their families had to secure food to attend school. Additionally, the WFP operates the “Food for Assets” program, which provides food in exchange for labor to people suffering from hunger, thereby creating jobs and instilling hope for the future. Similar to “Food for Assets,” the WFP also runs the “Food for Training” program, which helps poor people develop skills such as beekeeping, sewing, and literacy so they can generate more income.
Malnutrition leads to various diseases, causing physical and mental suffering and eroding people’s hope for the future. Despite advances in science and technology, the problems of malnutrition and hunger remain unresolved and require a collective global effort. To address these issues, various international organizations and private non-profit groups are working alongside the WFP. Like the developing countries currently receiving aid, South Korea was once a recipient of WFP food aid during the Korean War. The “Korea-WFP Aid Agreement” signed at that time was officially terminated on February 11, 2015—47 years later. South Korea, which was once so poor that it required post-war aid in the 1960s, may have moved far away from malnutrition as it experienced rapid economic growth. However, it is now time for us to give back as much as we have received. Rather than dismissing this as something that has nothing to do with us, why not take a moment to turn our attention to the issues the world is striving to address?
