HTML version by Oleksandr Svirchevskyy

“LET US MAKE HUNGER A PART OF HISTORY”

A former Under Secretary of State for Eco­nomic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs at the U.S. State Department, Ms Sheeran brings to WFP more than 20 years management and leadership experience in diplomacy, government foundations, international jour­nalism and business.
A constant theme in her work has been the focus on helping developing nations be­come more self-sufficient through economic empowerment. Ms Sheeran joins WFP at a critical time : the number of hungry poor isrising in the world.

You are not a newcomer to the UN system as you have been a major actor in the discussions on UN reform. What are your views on the subject?
During my work as a member of Kofi Annan's High-Level Panel on UN reform, I became convinced that when we - Member States, UN agencies, NGOs and other partners such as the private sector - pull together, the multilateral system is a much more powerful and effective force for peace, humanitarian assistance and development in the world. On my travels with the High-Level Panel, I was deeply impressed - and moved - by the quiet, can-do work of WFP - a UN agency better known on the front lines of human suffering than in the capitals. I came to the conclusion that among the agencies fulfilling the aim of improved cooperation WFP plays a crucial role in the UN system. WFP works very closely with partner agencies, not only in the field but also in Rome, New York and Geneva to deliver the results that the peoples of the world expect and deserve. I am very honoured to have been selected to head this agency. And I will make sure during my mandate that only best-practices of partner­ship, governance, and management are good enough.

WFP is a strong emergencies organization. What are the most challenging humanitarian crises that you are facing?
Sudan is WFP's biggest current operation. WFP plans to provide food assistance to some 5.5 million people across the country in 2007 - more than two million of them in Darfur where the challenges are enor­mous given the dangerous situation in the province. Insecurity is also threatening our life-saving operations in Afghanistan and Somalia. Zimbabwe will again this year face drought and an economic crisis putting one million people at risk. We have been strug­gling hard to get enough resources to feed 1.9 million pregnant and lactating mothers and their children in the Democratic Peo­ple's Republic of Korea. An emergency could happen at any time demanding our attention. But I would like to stress that nine out of ten children dying from hunger are doing so <span>far away from our TV screens, in a city slum or poor village. I call them my silent crises and I will fight to get them more attention from donors.

Hunger is still the number one health problem in the world with more than 850 million people who know what it is to go to bed night after night on an empty stomach. Very little progress has been made to solve the problem. How do you assess the situation?
The numbers are, indeed, distressing; especially when you think that since the 1960s the world produces enough to feed everyone on this planet and that the amount of food produced is growing faster than the world population. Nevertheless, every five seconds, a child dies from hunger - that's six million child deaths every year. This is unaccept­able. It is first of all a moral and humanitarian issue, but it has economic consequences as well. Hunger means an enormous loss of opportunities.

A recent study by WFP and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Cari­bbean shows that under nutrition in Central America and the Dominican Republic cost US$ 6.7 billion a year in lost productivity, a staggering 6.4 per cent of the region's GDP. This clearly shows we will not be able to erad­icate global poverty if we do not take effective steps to tackle hunger and malnutrition.

But we have made progress - and I applaud the many nations that have made great gains against hunger. Take for example China where hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty in few decades. This is one of the biggest victories over hunger in human history. Former recipients of WFP aid, such as India, Algeria, Vietnam and China have grown to be donors to WFP as well. These countries are a huge encouragement to those nations that are still struggling to feed themselves.

Today, we are standing at the threshold of a new era in our work of breaking the cycle of hunger. We are also at the halfway mark of the Millennium Development Goal One to cut the number of hungry people in half by 2015. We must, and can do better. WFP assistance reaches about 10 per cent of the world's 850 million hungry. That's a lot of people but it is nowhere near enough. We can, and must do better.

But how can we do better? There are so many obstacles.
True, there are obstacles, and we are also fac­ing new ones. These include climate change, soaring commodity prices, caused partly by the rapid growth of major countries like China and India, commodity costs (fuel is more expensive than ever) and rising de­mand for bio fuels which in turn is pushing up global grain prices. WFP must continually analyse and adjust its strategies to face the daunting new challenges of a rapidly chang­ing world. This is not easy. But it is feasible. Let me assure you that WFP will work closely with all our partners to try to get ahead of the hunger curve. We have the tools. It is a question of innovation and commitment at all levels. Most critically we need to end the blight of small, poor farmers - 70% of which are women - who bear most risk but benefit little from their labours. We must help them get the inputs- better seeds, fertilisers, water - and help them connect to markets. But until then we must reach those who are hungry.

If you had a magic stick, which tool would you conjure up to tackle hunger?
I wish I had enough resources to feed all the school-children in poor countries which is surely the best human rights investment there is. At an average of just 21 dollars per year, we can provide a child with a nutritious meal. The meal increases the chances of their parents sending them to school and because they have been fed means they concentrate better when they are there. An extra take-home ration also has the effect of pushing up the number of girls attending classes. School feeding is also an effective tool for combat­ing child labour as many children can toil all day just for a meal when they should be learning for their futures. Last year we fed 58 million children, but there are another 342 million to be reached. I would like to propose that the world consider making such a critical device available to all children in vulnerable situations - this would be a giant step toward achieving MDG One.

The message I want to push though during my mandate to everyone concerned - gov­ernments. UN agencies, NGOs, civil society is: let us work together, let us make chronic hunger history. We can do it. We have the tools. My long-term hope is that we ulti­mately put WFP out of business, at least in the field of chronic hunger.

Your first trip abroad as the new WFP Executive Director was to Ethiopia. Why did you start there?
Around half of WFP's budget comes in cash to buy food aid and 77 per cent of this cash is used to buy food aid in developing coun­tries. By going first to Ethiopia, I wanted to show my commitment to using WFP power to purchase food locally to benefit small-scale farmers and help to break to cycle of hunger at its root. I met with grain traders, farmers and officials to explore new and innovative ways of using WFP's purchasing power in local and regional markets to promote development, food security and supply stability for small African farmers. What I am looking for now is to develop a framework to help prepare small-scale fanners for better interaction not only with WFP tenders but with markets in general. I will be working hard to achieve this. I have already held a meeting of economists in Rome in May to discuss the matter and come up with new strategies and ideas.

How do you see the future of WFP?
WFP will not weaken its core strength of doing the heavy lifting when crisis and hunger set in. We must continue getting food to the most vulnerable people in the most remote areas, often where no other international agencies are equipped to go. We are, and will be, an organization that responds quickly and efficiently to crises in the world, be they man-made or natural. With the speeding up of climate change, we have to and will have to respond more and more to the needs of victims of natural disasters which have quadrupled from 100 in 1975 to 400 in 2005. More than half of WFP's work is in Africa, where climate change is already having a serious impact, particularly among the 140 million Africans who live in drought prone areas. WFP must look as well at the long-term development impact. During the UN High — Level Panel on System-Wide Coherence, we identified a gap, indeed a chasm, between humanitarian aid and long-term development. I believe WFP, with its unique operational and logistics role in dis­aster prevention, emergencies and recovery operations has considerable potential as a “bridging and hand-over” agency.

Our work on these issues is especially criti­cal because hunger is not only a conse­quence of conflicts, but can also in itself be a cause of instability in areas where the struggle for scarce resources can easily lead to tensions, cross-border migrations and even war. U.S. Congressman Steve Kagen said there is a “seven-meal-gap” between civi­lization and anarchy and he is right. When you or your children miss seven meals in a row, desperation sets in. When whole so­cieties are exposed to hunger for years, it is not surprising that instability sets in.