This week, Amsterdam Forum looks at a different attempt to tackle poverty, one involving rich countries adopting poor ones.
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One out of a million: malnourished child in Angola(photo Eric Beauchemin) |
Hans Eenhoorn is the former senior vice president of the multinational firm Unilever, which fittingly amongst other things makes food products.
He is now one of the leading lights of the UN's task force on hunger.
He's realised there are roughly the same number - one billion - of rich over-fed people as there are people suffering from hunger.
He calls this 'morally absurd' and is fighting tooth and nail to bring about change and getting people to think differently about poverty. Hence the adoption idea, which in reality means close co-operation between countries of similar size on different sides of the economic divide.
The Netherlands and Ghana for example, where the former businessman has been instrumental in setting up a scheme giving kids food at school.
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And the fight against hunger is a vital one - every three seconds a child dies from hunger-related causes somewhere in the world.
That's 20 a minute, or 1,200 an hour.
To those of us living comfortable lives in the developed world these are just abstract numbers - but to those faced with the reality of hunger these are dead sons and daughters and sisters and brothers.
Taaka Awori from the group Action Aid in Ghana also takes part in the discussion.
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Key quotes:
Hans Eenhoorn on the rich countries adopting the poor ones:
"There are about one billion people living on just sufficient food to survive but not enough to survive in a healthy way and they are mentally and physically handicapped because of a lack of vitamins, proteins and minerals. At the same time, in the same world, there are about one billion people in the OECD countries [the rich countries] who live such a wealthy life that they get sick because of obesity or forms of food-related cancers and cardio-vascular disease."
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Hans Eenhoorn |
Taaka Awori on the idea of rich countries adopting poor ones:
"I would find the idea of adoption patronising and too reminiscent of a previous colonial relationship - so I'm glad we're talking about a partnership. But we need to look more closely as to what this partnership would entail."
"I would argue that more of this would be about the Dutch government and the Dutch people committing to changing and committing to looking at their own policies and practices so as much as it would be worthwhile to have programmes to stimulate local production in Ghana. What we are finding is that often farmers can't compete because of subsidies in Europe."
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Taaka Awori |
"I say that is nonsense. I think the world can only become a better place if business fully co-operates. It can't be the NGOs and it can't be the governments, in the end it is business developing economies in a sustainable way which will solve the world's biggest problems."
Taaka Awori, asked if she was convinced by the optimism of Hans Eenhoorn that poverty could be tackled:
"I'm not convinced - there seems to be an assumption that somehow a transfer of resources - from the North to the South or from the South to the South - will somehow address these key issues around poverty. I think that's a much too simplistic approach to tackling poverty.
Hans Eenhoorn on the value of the Millennium Development Goals:
"I think the Millennium Development Goals are fantastic for their practical implications but also for their symbolic value. That they are there and that the world is converging on a number targets is of great value."
Tags: action aid, development, Dutch, Eenhoorn, famine, Ghana, hunger, millenium goals, UN, Unilever