Institute Notes: A Dialogue on Overcoming Hunger and Poverty

Haven't We Heard This Before?

The pledge by leaders at the just-concluded G8 summit of $20 billion for efforts to boost food supplies for the world’s hungry – up from an anticipated $15 billion pledge – is certainly to be welcomed.  There can be no doubt that a major increase in funding on the part of all the world’s countries, rich and poor alike, for policies and programs to support increased agricultural productivity and food security is long overdue.  Last year’s spike in global food prices -- a catastrophe for the world’s poor, who spend the bulk of their income on food – can be at least partially attributed to the decline in attention to agriculture: Official development assistance (ODA) for agriculture as a percentage of the total declined from over 20 percent in the 1980’s to less than 5 percent by 2008.

Still, pledging the money and actually coming through with it are two entirely different things, and the track record for G8 pledges is not particularly good.  As pointed out in a July 10 BBC story, rich countries are behind in meeting their target of doubling aid that was made at the 2005 G8 Summit, and past pledges to step up support for agriculture have not been met.

President Obama has pledged that the U.S. will contribute $3.5 billion to the overall $20 billion effort, and his 2010 budget request included $1.4 billion for agriculture and food security as the first step in meeting that commitment. However, the House Appropriations Committee has slashed that by almost one-third, to $1 billion, with the bulk of additional funds going to Afghanistan and Pakistan – not the chronically food deficit countries of Africa.

So, is this going to be another case of rich countries, the U.S. included, making pledges and then walking away?  The initial signs are not particularly good.

The U.S. Anti-poverty Safety Net Has Eroded for People Who Need it Most

That’s the alarming top-line message in a new report by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. People in deep poverty, i.e. at 50 percent of the poverty line and lower, get less help from public benefits programs than people in deep poverty did ten years earlier. Moreover, people in deep poverty are getting less help from public benefits as a share of their population than people with incomes closer to the poverty line or slight above.

"In 1995, the safety net lifted above half the poverty line 88 percent of children whose family incomes were lower than that before counting safety net benefits. By 2005, this percentage had declined to 76 percent."

"Among children whose non-benefit income was between 75 percent and 99 percent of the poverty line, public programs lifted 65 percent above the poverty line in 2005, up from 51 percent in 1995."

The safety net includes means-tested programs like EITC and SNAP (formerly known as the Food Stamp Program), also housing assistance and Social Security, although the latter is used more by seniors than families with children.

These changes are due to restructuring of the safety net that has occurred in the wake of welfare reform legislation in 1996. Welfare reform was all about getting poor people off the dole and into the workforce. If you wanted government help, you had to work for it now.

The biggest change occurred in Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), a program that had been around in mostly the same form since the Great Depression. Replace the word Families in the program with the word Mothers and you get a better picture of who the program was working for.

AFDC was renamed Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF) and block granted, meaning states had far more control over how the program would be administered and what the rules could be inside their own jurisdiction. But the biggest difference between TANF and AFDC was that families had to be working or actively pursuing work to receive benefits, and there would be a time-limit for how long families could be on the program, usually five years, and that’s for life. 

It should not require an advanced degree to see that people in deep poverty are there because they don't work a lot. The lower you're income the less you work, obviously.

Maybe it’s just me but I find it discomfiting to think that in the first period of really high unemployment since welfare reform was enacted we’ve now got lots of people who won’t be able to take advantage of the safety net. Some changes were made in the stimulus package passed earlier this year to loosen work requirements, but those are going to expire in a year and most economists seem to agree that even if the economy is officially no longer in recession, we can still expect unemployment to remain high for some time after that.

TANF comes up for reauthorization next year. Maybe this is a good time to consider whether we’re due for some reform of welfare reform.
 

Rightside Up and Upside down on Clean Energy

The American Climate and Energy Security (ACES) bill, aka Waxman-Markey, passed narrowly in the House of Representatives last week, 219-212. It’s a lousy bill for those of us who were looking forward to the U.S. finally doing something serious about climate change, but we mustn’t overlook the fact it still passed and that’s an important step forward in itself.

U.S. climate policy can only get better going forward. But we have the start of a climate policy – keep your fingers crossed the bill doesn’t get killed in the Senate, and don’t be surprised if even more accommodations aren’t made to industry lobbyists. 

Why clean energy in the United States never matured from its promising beginnings in the 1970s is symptomatic of what’s gone wrong with the U.S. economy in general over this time and why we’re in the deepest recession since World War II. In the 70s, as clean energy technologies were quickly evolving, the United States jumped far ahead of all other countries technologically and commercially. By 1980, the U.S. was producing 80 percent of all wind energy in the world. We can thank Jimmy Carter for this, as we can blame Ronald Reagan for undermining the achievements we had made. Remember it was Reagan who ripped the solar panels off the White House roof that Carter had placed there. This isn’t why the clean energy industry in the United States went into hibernation but it was indicative of the contempt Reagan had for clean energy and wind energy in particular; it’s said he never got over those turbines gumming up stretches of the California horizon.

Grim News We Already Knew: Hunger is Increasing

The FAO released new data today about the increase in hunger around the world. In 2009, 1.02 billion people will go hungry.

Number of Hungry People in the World

While Asia and sub-Saharan Africa continue to have the largest number of hungry people, it is surprising that three areas that have had low or stable hunger numbers over the last decade or more saw sharp increases: the Near East/North Africa region, Latin America and the Caribbean and developed countries as a whole

Estimated Regional Distribution of Hunger in 2009 (mil.)
and Increase from 2008 Levels (%)

The Benefits of Clean Water

Two article caught my attention today reminding me of the importance of clean water. The first describes eight recent deaths in coastal Kenya caused by Acute Watery Diarrhea (AWD). My colleagues from PATH blogged about Diarrheal Disease last week. The deaths were attributed to "poor sanitation and lack of clean drinking water following heavy rain in most parts of the province which has destroyed sewage pipes and swept away pit latrine." The sharp increase in AWD shows just how fragile access to clean water is in Kenya and many other developing countries.

The second story describes how relief donations to internally displaced people in Pakistan include infant formula. While formula can be good for infants, when it is mixed with unclean water the consequences can be severe and even deadly. The inclusion of formula in the relief packages being provided to internally displaced persons has raised significant concerns among health professionals who worry that it sends the wrong message about appropriate feeding practices (running counter to efforts to encourage breastfeeding for example) and will also undoubtedly lead to more sick children as basic sanitation has been compromised or does not exist at all in the camps.

Both these stories highlight just how important clean water is to health and nutrition. Over at the One Campaign, signatures are being collected for Petition asking Congress to support the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2009. The Bill authorizes funding to create sustainable access to clean water for millions of people around the world. It is one part of what is needed in order to create an integrated strategy for addressing the needs of poor and hungry children around the world.