45,000 Benefit From Ifad/FG Poverty Alleviation

from All Africa

This Day (Lagos)

No fewer than 45,000 poor rural families in Delta State are to benefit from the poverty alleviation programme of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Federal Government.

The households are located in nine local government areas targeted by IFAD/FG Community-Based Natural Resources Management Programme (CBNRMP) in Niger Delta.

The project basically targets agriculture and rural development in nine Niger Delta states, including Delta State.

State Programme Officer for the project, Mr Chris Abuah, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibusa, Delta State, that 27 communities were being targeted in the state. He said the programme, which started in three pilot local government areas of Delta, covers agricultural and structural developments in six other local government areas.

He said six of the eight projects initiated by CBNRMP in three pilot councils of Burutu, Ethiope West and Oshimili North in 2007, had been completed through direct labour.

"Our targets are mainly women, youths and vulnerable groups," Abuah said.

Kids come first in poverty war, minister says

from The Toronto Star

Forum makes case to her that non-white groups are most economically afflicted in Ontario society

Tanya Talaga
Social Justice Reporter

Ontario's anti-poverty strategy will first focus on improving the lives of impoverished children, the leader of the province's drive to reduce poverty told a conference staged by the Colour of Poverty Campaign.

"You can't have a strategy that starts everywhere," said Deb Matthews, Ontario's Minister of Children and Youth Services.

The consultation process on how to reduce poverty will begin soon, she told the Toronto assembly. The minister said the province plans to launch a website seeking thoughts on reducing poverty.

Matthews also acknowledged the importance of the experiences of racially diverse community groups when devising a strategy. In Ontario, 47 per cent of children within newcomer families live in poverty.

"We need to really look at the diversity of poverty. It is not as simple as raising social assistance rates."

Matthews cautions there won't be enough money to fund all anti-poverty suggestions. "We have to be strategic."

A coalition of groups have come together to form the Colour of Poverty Campaign and are stressing that non-white people bear the brunt of poverty in Ontario and a one-size-fits-all anti-poverty strategy simply won't work.

The group has been lobbying the Liberal government to recognize that "colour" plays a major role in who happens to be poor.

People from ethno-racial minority groups are more likely to live below the low-income measurement line, to have poorer health, lower education levels and fewer job opportunities than people from Caucasian or European backgrounds, the group says.

"There is an opportunity here because we are talking about the issue," said Angela Robertson, executive director of Sistering, a support group for low-income women. "It's time to hold our decision makers to their commitments."

In the opening panel discussion, Karl Flecker, of the Canadian Labour Congress, pointed out that 65 per cent of people of colour occupy the lowest five occupational categories in the labour market – primarily low-paid service sector jobs with few benefits.

Canada is in danger of creating an "economic apartheid" as the gap between rich and poor increases, said Grace-Edward Galabuzi, a Ryerson professor in politics and public administration.

The colour of poverty is often missing when discussing these issues, he said. "Race matters. Gender matters. Disability matters."

4 Regions Declare Anti-Poverty War

from All Africa

The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

By Samuel Kamndaya

Arusha, Kilimanjaro, Manyara and Tanga regional commissioners are planning to fight poverty and ignorance in their regions.

They will also improve key sector to increase incomes of people.

They said in a statement obtained in Dar es Salaam that entrepreneurial and business education would be spread to householders to enable them to exploit their resources fully.

They made the remarks in Arusha at a weekend empowerment workshop.

The Tanzania National Business Council (TNBC) organised the event. The regions will also formulate strategies that will allow people to get bank loans easily.

"We are required to go to the households. Let's talk to them and understand their needs and consider how to help them,"

Arusha regional commissioner Isidore Shirima said.

His Manyara counterpart Henry Shekifu said acquiring entrepreneurial and business skills would enable people to exploit their resources.

Kilimanjaro regional commissioner, Mohammed Babu said farmers had problems accessing bank loans to invest in inputs.

Information on markets is also poor.

"If farmers get farm inputs and loans and have ample information on markets of their products, then they will be able to increase their incomes," he said.

Tanga acting regional commissioner Ibrahim Msengi said the country's greatest challenge to development was how to modernise agriculture.

"We have abundant fruits that end up rotting in farms simply because farmers are not empowered."

Training Health Agents to Reduce Child Mortality

from IPS News

By Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, An ambitious new programme for training health agents to help reduce infant mortality in small rural communities and indigenous villages, launched by one of Argentina’s best-known human rights groups, drew many more applicants than the organisers had hoped for.

"We expected 500 people to register, but we had to expand the programme to 800, and many health professionals even signed up," Oscar Natalichio, extension secretary at the Popular University of the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, told IPS.

The University was created by the Madres (Mothers) of Plaza de Mayo, a group founded during Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship to demand that their sons and daughters, who were "disappeared" by the military regime, be returned to them alive.

The formal name of the health agent project, which has the backing of the Ministry of Social Development, is "’Mothers’ Territory’ National Labour Plan for Promotion and Training in Child Development", better known as "Territorio Madres".

It was launched in mid-April with introductory workshops in Chapadmalal, a village in the southern part of the province of Buenos Aires.

"We are going to put an end to poverty and ignorance, and improve the health services, all of us working together," promised the president of the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Hebe de Bonafini, at the start of the programme, accompanied by Minister of Social Development Alicia Kirchner, President Cristina Fernández’s sister-in-law.

Professors from the Popular University and universities in the provinces will provide the applicants with training in areas like primary health care, child development and social work. The students will be split into two groups of 400. The first group begins the course in May.

"The participants have at least a high school diploma, and we especially asked for experience in community work with small children. They will be trained to detect problems that can be referred to professionals in the health sector, social work or education. Many of the people who signed up are actually doctors," said Natalichio with evident surprise.

Romina Colachi, secretary of extension at the psychology department in the National University at Mar del Plata, 400 km south of Buenos Aires, told IPS that in her region, applicants included psychologists, social workers, students of psychology and social work, and members of indigenous communities.

"This is a very heterogeneous group that shares, nonetheless, a common experience and objective: working with children," said Colachi. In her psychology department, students have already been working with children in the areas of sexual abuse and domestic violence.

"Now our work will expand, because we have joined a nationwide programme that has support from the state," she said enthusiastically.

According to the latest Health Ministry statistics, child mortality stood at 13.3 infants under the age of one for every 1,000 live births in 2005. But that average conceals huge disparities between provinces. In the northern province of Formosa, for example, the rate climbs to 25.1 for every 1,000 live births, compared to just eight in Buenos Aires.

Reducing infant mortality is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by United Nations members in 2000. The fourth MDG is to cut the mortality rate among children under five by two-thirds by 2015, from 1990 levels. In addition, Argentina has committed itself to narrowing the gap between any two regions to no more than 10 percent.

"What we want is not for people to earn a diploma to hang on their wall, but for them to go and get involved, on the ground," said Natalichio.

Colachi agreed on the need to live up to that challenge. "The plan must then move into a second stage, in which the trained agents are hired in the communities, and become, in turn, trainers," she said.

For the training programme, "Territorio Madres" divided the country into 10 regions covering two or three provinces each.

The students will take the courses at a university or social agency with experience in working in children’s health issues, in the main city in each of the 10 regions.

Besides the Mar del Plata and Madres de Plaza de Mayo universities, training will be provided by the Autonomous University of Entre Ríos, in the eastern province of that name, the University of Río Cuarto, located in the central province of Córdoba, and several social organisations that work with children.

The health agents will later be hired to work in indigenous communities or rural towns and villages with populations of less than 2,000. Financing for scholarships has come from the Ministry of Social Development, and the organisers hope the government will continue to provide support for the agents’ fieldwork.

The course itself is tuition-free, and students who must bus in from other towns will be given free housing and meals for the one week a month when the classes are on, as well as a monthly scholarship of 100 dollars for travelling costs and other expenses.

At the introductory workshops held earlier this month in Chapadmalal by the Ministry of Social Development and the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, the participants were presented with the subject matter to be studied, and the final objectives of the course were explained to them.

UN Holds Food Crisis Talks in Switzerland

from the Voice of America

By Lisa Schlein

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is heading emergency talks aimed at tackling the growing crisis caused by soaring food prices around the world. Participating in this two-day high-powered meeting in the Swiss capital, Bern, are the President of the World Bank, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and the Heads of nearly 30 United Nations aid agencies. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.

U.N. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon says the steeply rising price of food has developed into a global crisis. He says the U.N.-sponsored meeting in Bern must find solutions to a problem that is increasing poverty, hunger and instability in the world.

The United Nations estimates about 100 million of the world's poorest people cannot afford to buy food. Because of the spiraling costs, the World Food Program says its original budget for this year is not enough to feed all the hungry. It is appealing for an additional three quarters of $1 billion to meet the extra expenses.

The U.N. refugee agency says millions of refugees and internally displaced people will be particularly hard hit by skyrocketing food prices. Spokesman, Ron Redmond, says most of these people are totally dependent on food donations from the international community.

"This kind of dramatic price increases can also trigger instability, particularly in poor countries and this is of great concern to UNHCR as well, because we are already seeing this happening in several countries," said Redmond. "Of course, the possibility could be eventual increased displacement should it trigger further conflict and instability in those countries."

The Food and Agriculture Organization warns sharp rises in cereal prices have left 37 poor countries in an emergency situation. This has sparked food riots in many countries including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Egypt and Senegal.

The meeting in Bern will also address the impact of climate change on food production and explore ways to help poor countries adapt to these changes. The growing controversy over bio-fuels is also on the agenda.

Critics argue that the cultivation of crops for bio-fuels is taking good land away from food production and causing prices to rise. Some people are calling for a moratorium on the production of bio-fuels.

EU Ponders Next Move On Trade Deals

from All Africa

The Monitor (Kampala)

By Peter Nyanzi
Brussels

The European Union is contemplating the way forward following the reluctance of the majority of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries to sign the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) they have been negotiating, five months after the expiry of the December 31 deadline set by the World Trade Organisation.

EU officials told a group of ACP journalists attending a workshop on EPAs in Brussels recently that there was need for a consensus "as soon as possible" with the regional blocs and individual States that had initialled interim agreements and those had completed rejected them.

Eight years ago when negotiations on EPAs began, it was with the best of intentions - to put in a place a fair trade regime that would go beyond just being compatible with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules; to encompass poverty alleviation, development and regional integration in the ACP countries.

But as the WTO's December 31, 2007 deadline drew close, there was angst and despair as the whole process became increasingly bogged down in a quagmire of controversy and acrimony.

Not surprisingly, only less than half of the 78 ACP countries had initialled the agreements at the close of the year. Of the six regions, only the Caribbean has concluded a full EPA.

The East African region signed an interim agreement on November 23.

Later in June or July, the Commission will present both the interim and full EPAs to the European Parliament for approval.

Following high-level consultations with the concerned parties, the EC has drawn up a number of issues for which it seeks consensus over the next 12 months with the negotiators from the various regions involved in the EPA talks.

Intense lobbying is rife in Brussels, the European capital by civil society actors and lobby groups, which want the whole process revisited.

But Mr Peter Mandelson, the trade commissioner and other officials, blamed the impasse on "misinformation" and "misconceptions" being perpetuated by some civil society groups and some Members of the European Parliament (MEP) such as Ms Glenys Kinnock, who denies the claims.

Renewed drive to eliminate malaria

from IRIN News

JAKARTA, 28 April 2008 (IRIN) - Indonesia, where close to 100 million people live in areas susceptible to malaria, has embarked on a drive to eliminate the disease by 2030.

Last year, 1.75 million Indonesians were clinically diagnosed with malaria and more than 300,000 people tested positive for the disease. A clinical diagnosis involves only the observation of symptoms while positive cases are confirmed through microscopy slides or rapid diagnostic tests.

The fatality rate in Indonesia is estimated at about 1 percent, but it is believed that many deaths are not recorded due to a lack of access to health services among people in remote villages, the health ministry said.

Five provinces in eastern Indonesia have been categorised as high-endemic regions and while the islands of Java, Borneo and Sulawesi are considered low-endemic, in several areas malaria cases remain high, the ministry said.

Under a programme launched by the health ministry on 23 April, Indonesia aims to halve by 2010 the number of villages where more than five in 1,000 people are infected with malaria and eliminate the disease by 2030.

In some villages in the easternmost region of Papua, which consists of three provinces, between 30 and 80 percent of the population are infected with malaria, said Rita Kusriartuti, head of the health ministry's sub-directorate for malaria.

“People take malaria for granted”

"In many parts of Indonesia people take malaria for granted. They think having malaria is normal because their parents and their ancestors also suffered from malaria," Kusriartuti told IRIN.

The programme aims to improve the quality of treatment through the administration of Artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) drugs and increasing detection through microscopy slides and rapid diagnostic tests.

The government will set up malaria alert posts in villages to improve surveillance and establish more laboratories, according to health ministry officials.

It will also distribute insecticide-treated bed nets in endemic regions, with two million to be supplied in 2008 alone, and provide free immunisation for babies. In addition, a national campaign on how to prevent and treat the disease is being launched.

Kusriartuti said lack of funds and trained professional staff, as well as the poor compliance of infected patients, hampered government efforts to control malaria.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the 1997-1998 economic crisis had adversely affected malaria control programmes in Indonesia, particularly vector control activities, so that the incidence of epidemics increased in some parts of the country.

The WHO estimated in a 2005 report that more than 94 million Indonesians lived in areas where malaria was endemic.

Discontent, poverty fueling Naxalite rebels

from the Christian Science Monitor

A government-appointed committee says violence by the Maoist insurgency is growing and urges the government to talk with rebels.
By Mian Ridge

Amid increasing violence sparked by India's Maoist insurgency, politicians and observers have called for leaders to tackle the causes of the rebel movement: poverty, landlessness, and unemployment.

India's Maoist revolt, or Naxalism, is thought to have killed thousands since it began in the 1960s. Some 13 of India's 29 states have been affected by the insurgency. India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has previously described the movement as the biggest domestic security threat facing the country. Since surprise Maoist wins in Nepal's general elections last month, there have been fears in India that the Naxalites would be emboldened by that victory.

New government figures also show that Naxalite violence is on the rise, reports the website of Zee News, an Indian TV channel. Some 698 deaths were reported in 2007, compared with 678 the previous year. The rise was attributed to a greater use of improvised explosive devices and land mines by the rebels and more attacks.

On Monday, the Times of India reported that a high-level committee appointed by the central government had urged the government to focus on the discontentment that fuels Naxalism. The report was written by members of the Planning Commission, an Indian policy think tank. It also urged the government to seek peace talks with Naxalite leaders.

On growth of Naxalism, the report said that while policy documents admitted direct correlation between extremism and poverty, in practice, the government treated it as a law and order problem. "It is necessary to change this mindset and bring about congruence between policy and implementation," the panel said.

The report has exhaustive details about social, political, economic, and cultural discrimination faced by [Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who are among India's poorest people] and how that resulted in discontented people finding succor in immediate justice provided by the Naxalites.

To buttress its point, the committee did a survey of four districts affected by Naxalism and compared it with four comparatively more developed areas [in eastern India, including] Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Orissa.

It was found that the districts where Naxalism had grown were different from developed ones in 10 ways: [a higher percentage of poor], low literacy, high infant mortality, low level of urbanization, high forest cover, high share of agricultural labour, low per capita foodgrain production, low level of road length, high share of rural households without bank accounts, and high share of rural households without specified assets.

Naxalites have found willing recruits among some rural poor, who feel left behind as India rushes to modernize. Forest-dwelling tribal people, in particular, have suffered displacement by large development projects – including dams – and a government failure to ensure food security.

Last week, the chief minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi, said that efforts should be made to dissuade young men from joining the Naxalites, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI), a domestic news wire.

"Do they lack education? If be so, what is the reason? Economic conditions? If that is the propelling factor, then we should take steps to improve the conditions," he said....

And over the weekend, Rahul Gandhi, heir of India's Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and a probable future leader of the ruling Congress Party, toured insurgency-hit areas of the eastern state of Chhattisgarh, where Naxalism is especially prevalent. Security was tight, says the News Post India, an online newspaper, which also reported that Mr. Gandhi had wanted to spend a night with a tribal family but was cautioned against it.

Gandhi asked why Maoism was on the rise in the area, reports the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS).

Congress sources said that [nongovernmental organizations] and party local tribal youths informed Gandhi that "decades of total neglect of local tribal masses by various governments in welfare schemes and the government's failure to work out a proper plan for the social and economic development of tribals have nurtured Maoism".

In the meantime, the violence continues. Over the weekend, Naxalites murdered three policemen in the eastern state of Jharkhand, reported the Telegraph, a paper published in Calcutta . A rebel and a villager were also killed in the crossfire.

Last week, a group of armed Naxalites attacked an iron ore plant in Chhattisgarh and set fire to 53 trucks, reported the Business Standard, India's leading business newspaper. Sources suggested that the attack was a protest against the exportation of iron ore outside the state.

And while some urge the government to address the causes of Naxalism, others call for might to fight the "Maoist menace" as Indian reporters have dubbed the rebels' armed struggle.

The Khaleej Times reported last week that a senior Maoist leader told journalists the rebels would never back down from their armed struggle. The rebel leader said that unlike Nepal's Maoists, who triumphed in last month's general election, the Naxalites would continue to believe "in capturing power through armed struggle."

Price rises eating away at children's futures: an interview with WFP nutritionist Andrew Thorne-Lyman

from Reuters Alert Net

Source: WFP

Global price rises mean that food is literally being taken out of the mouths of hungry children whose parents can no longer afford to feed them. Nutritionist Andrew Thorne-Lyman, tells WFP web writer Michelle Hough what this could mean for generations to come.

Have you ever wished you were taller? Healthier? Smarter?

There’s a whole generation of children who probably won’t be able to achieve any of these goals, all because global price rises mean that their food portions are getting smaller and their meals are getting fewer.

“Even temporarily depriving children of the nutrients they need to grow and thrive can leave permanent scars in terms of stunting their physical growth and intellectual potential,” says Andrew Thorne-Lyman, a nutritionist with WFP.

Families in the developing world are finding their buying power has been slashed by food price rises, meaning they can buy less food or food which isn’t as nutritious.

"The new face of hunger"

These people have become the “new face of hunger” as high prices edge them into poverty and they can no longer feed themselves.

Thorne-Lyman says that when this happens, people try to cope with price increases in any way they can. Often, they cut out more expensive foods such as meat, fruit and vegetables and just eat basic staples such as rice or maize.

This has serious implications for child development as without sufficient vitamins and minerals, children are at greater risk of disease and stunted growth.

Children hit by price rises

“Looking at data from Bangladesh in the 1990s, as rice prices rose, so did child malnutrition,” says Thorne-Lyman. (1)

He explains that families didn’t necessarily stop buying less rice when the price went up - they just reduced their consumption of the vitamin and mineral-rich foods necessary to help children grow.

More seriously, if children are deprived of nutrients at essential stages of growth it impairs their mental development, which can have untold consequences in later life.

WFP has long prioritised mothers and young children when providing food assistance. Thorne-Lyman explains that there’s a “window of opportunity” for children under two, where good nutrition can help them grow healthy and strong.

Nutrition effects on income

However, once children are stunted because they didn't get the right foods, they don’t catch up. This can have long-term effects on their economic productivity.

“One study showed that kids in Guatemala who received a nutritional supplement in the first two years of life had a higher income later on than those who didn’t,” he says. (2)

But now food and fuel costs have risen, and the dollar has fallen, WFP’s budget is stretched to the limit. Meanwhile, high prices have left more and more people in need of food assistance, so WFP is faced with a series of difficult choices about who to feed.

For example, WFP’s Kenya programme may have to cut food to 550,000 children in schools this year. It was either this or not provide food to people with HIV/AIDS.

"Food is essential for people under-going anti-retroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS because many of them are malnourished,” says Thorne-Lyman.

“These people rely on our help because many of them haven't been able to work for months due to their sickness. The combination of treatment and food gets them back on their feet and able to work again," he says.

Education and the inter-generational link

However, growing children in the developing world also need help. WFP provided school meals to over 19 million children across the world last year in the knowledge that food is essential for good health and personal development.

A study undertaken in Indonesia and Bangladesh illustrated that for every year of education a woman has received, the odds of her child being stunted are reduced by 4-5 percent.

In other words, keeping children in school through programmes like school feeding is an investment that will pay dividends in the nutritional status of the next generation. (3)

The decisions that WFP is forced to take about who to feed today will have long-lasting implications on the people of tomorrow and the communities and nations in which they live.

WFP's tough decisions

“WFP is finding more and more that it has to make decisions about either feeding half as many people or giving people half as much food as they need. As a nutritionist, I often get asked what type of cut would cause the least harm. There is no right answer to this dilemma It’s a shame we have to make such decisions at all, especially when you consider that the world produces enough food for everyone,” says Thorne-Lyman.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned last week that the food price crisis, which has provoked riots across the globe, if not handled properly “…could trigger a cascade of other multiple crises - becoming a multi-dimensional problem affecting economic growth, social progress, and even political security around the world.”

Conference set to target poverty

from the Livingston Daily Press and Argus

By Alison Bergsieker

With a median household income of $70,000, almost 40 percent above the state average, Livingston County residents appear to be pretty well off.

But below the surface are the more striking statistics: Poverty is an increasing issue around the county.

In an effort to get the word out, the Livingston County United Way is hosting a Bridges Out of Poverty two-day conference next week, welcoming social service providers, business leaders and the public to better understand and meet the needs of area people living in poverty.

"There is a perception that people in this community are well off and don't have problems," United Way Executive Director Nancy Rosso said. "Well that couldn't be further from the truth."

The conference will feature trainer Monica Bein, a national consultant from Aha! Process Inc., an organization aimed at improving the education and lives of people living in poverty around the world. Consultants from Aha! Process Inc. work with school districts, social service groups and businesses to help people better understand poverty issues.

A Southeast Michigan Council of Governments report predicts Livingston County will increase in overall population by 15 percent by 2035, from 184,500 residents in 2006 to more than 212,000 residents by 2035.

Since 2003, the county's seen a 30 percent increase in families qualifying for public assistance, according to a United Way report.

"On a big map, if you look at us compared to the rest of the state, we look quite healthy," Rosso said. "But what we like to stress is it's much more difficult to be poor in an affluent area, where there isn't a public transportation system or other support systems in place. You don't have the support system that you would have in place in an urban area."

Of the calls made to the 211 service line for basic needs, 40 percent of calls are residents who can't afford rent payments, gas and electric bills, food and legal aid, according to a United Way report.

Anyone who works with people experiencing poverty, businesses who want to help people in poverty and anyone else interested is encouraged to attend the Bridges Out of Poverty conference.

Child poverty reaching 'crisis levels' in NZ

from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

By New Zealand correspondent Kerri Ritchie

Doctors in New Zealand say the level of child neglect has hit crisis point with a new report claiming 185,000 children are living in poverty.

The report was released by the Child Poverty Action Group, an independent charity, which believes one in five New Zealand children are living in poverty.

The report states that between 2000 and 2004 the number of children facing hardship jumped by a third to 26 per cent.

Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Auckland, Dr Innes Asher, says it is a crisis.

"We now have double the rates of admissions to hospital for children with preventable diseases compared to the 1980s," Dr Asher said.

"It's a shocking situation."

Dr Asher says children are not a priority in New Zealand and their basic needs are often ignored.

New group to fight poverty in Niagara

from St Catharine's Standard

Posted By KARENA WALTER

A team of community members from all economic sectors will be formed to fight poverty in Niagara.

The Poverty to Prosperity Caucus being established by non-profit organization Opportunities Niagara will be action-oriented, executive director Peter Papp said.

"We're not just going to yap about it, we're going to do something about it."

Papp said key people in the community will establish a game plan over the next couple of months, with a caucus coming together in early fall.

The idea follows a call to action issued by the Business Education Council of Niagara in February at its annual partners breakfast. Members from the business, non-profit and education sectors attended the event.

About 150 of the participants signed up indicating they wanted to become involved in poverty reduction initiatives. They included bankers, educators, builders, retirees and others from various areas.

"We want to pull together these people and put together a caucus that doesn't just address the issues of poverty, but looks at some prosperity," Papp said.

That means making sure people get jobs and keep jobs, find affordable housing they can hold onto and get proper education to upgrade their skills, he said.

The caucus will also bring together agencies dealing with poverty issues and give them one collective voice.

"There are lots of people doing this stuff, but it's, 'How do we pool all that into a formidable force?' " Papp said.

"We're not only going to do things, but we're going to shift public and private policy, and that's something communities across Canada have been successful with."

Opportunities Niagara estimates that 14 per cent of Niagara residents live in poverty. It says the poverty rate for children is 15.6 per cent.

Ted Palmer, executive director of the Business Education Council of Niagara, said people want to help, but often don't know how.

Through the partners breakfast and the caucus, he said, the business community is taking ownership of the problem and has an opportunity to be part of the solution.

He said he hopes the caucus will play a strong advocacy role when seeking investments from the provincial and federal governments. It's not just a social problem, it's an economic problem, he said.

"We definitely know there's a problem here, there's no question about it, and don't think there should be. We have an area that's prosperous enough that it should support some initiatives to help people."

Niagara's Poverty to Prosperity Caucus is inspired by similar initiatives in other municipalities, particularly Saint John, N.B.

Now in its fourth year, the Leadership Round Table for Vibrant Communities in the Maritime city brings together partners from government, schools and businesses.

Co-ordinator Wendy MacDermott, speaking from Saint John, said the group has seen tangible results in a community with 24 per cent poverty.

Initially, the team focused on research and learning, and was surprised to discover how concentrated poverty was in certain neighbourhoods. That information has changed how they look at the problem, she said.

As a result, St. John put in sidewalks and green space and redeveloped social housing in specific areas. There are also community police officers in those neighbourhoods.

MacDermott said the most valuable contribution the business interests bring to the table is influence. "A lot of that type of thing, you can't replace that, it's invaluable."

Niagara's caucus will also be looking to educators to be a key part of the solution.

Dan Patterson, president of Niagara College, said the college is integral to the effort because of the skills training it offers.

At the same time the economy is experiencing labour and skills shortages, there are many people in Niagara who are low-skilled, underemployed, unemployed and living in poverty, he said.

"We have to do a better job matching skills shortages and needs, training people for jobs that will make a difference," he said.

The school is also trying to increase scholarships and bursaries so people don't drop out because of financial burden.

By the numbers

Niagara residents living in poverty: 14 per cent

Families living in poverty: 12.7 per cent

Children living in poverty: 15.6 per cent

Families in the workforce making less than $20,000: 15 per cent

The median employment income of Niagara's workforce: $23,400

Population paying greater than 30 per cent of their income on rent: 45.6 per cent

- Source: Opportunities Niagara

Renaissance Village in Baker to close, ending social experiment

from the New Orleans Times Picayune

by Sarah Carr, The Times-Picayune

At first, after hundreds of New Orleans children settled into FEMA trailers in the small town of Baker, it was a case of the 504s against the 225s.

Many of the 504s arrived at Renaissance Village trailer park angry and sad, their lives abruptly upended.

The 225s watched, sometimes warily.

Describing the children by their area codes was a way to evoke the palpable divide between the newcomers, exiled to this rural corner of Baker, and the children who had lived there all their lives. It took months, in some cases years, for the 504-225 distinctions to fade.

"Today I don't think you would really know who the kids from New Orleans are," said Sarah Henry, the principal of Progress Elementary School, which many of the Renaissance Village students still attend.

In some respects Renaissance Village, near Baton Rouge, serves as an unintentional social experiment: A captive audience of extremely poor children and families was provided an array of social services, all within walking distance: Early Head Start, Head Start, an after-school program, a teen center, counselors and health care. Most of the programs would still be available to the families if they lived outside the trailer park gates, but it would not be so easy, or obvious, to take advantage of them.

When FEMA announced that Renaissance Village would close May 31, it sent many of the families still there into a panicked frenzy to find affordable permanent housing.

"From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., you had a safe place to bring your child, which gives you the time to get skills to improve yourself," said Cynthia Vance, the program manager for kindergarteners through fifth-graders at the park. "It was free and within walking distance. I think that will be one of the reasons a lot of residents might wait until the last minute to leave."

Crucial support network

In many respects Renaissance Village represents a failed response to the 2005 storms and flooding: Hundreds of the poorest of the poor -- almost all from New Orleans -- were placed in trailers, indefinitely, as Baton Rouge-area shelters began to close down. Residents were far from relatives, friends or other support networks. No one had any real plan for getting them out of the trailers and into homes.

If there's a silver lining to Renaissance Village, many residents and educators say it can be found in the support system that has gradually emerged for the approximately 100 school-age children still living there. It's a support system rooted in row of simple buildings housing the Head Start and after-school programs and located in the back of the park.

As the families disperse, residents and workers at the park are trying to preserve some of that support network, even as the trailers themselves get forklifted away: Teachers in the after-school program regularly drive across town before dawn to pick up former trailer park children who want to continue at current schools. Parents of school-age children say they are planning to stay in the Baker-Baton Rouge area. Local leaders are talking about trying to replicate some of Renaissance Village's programs for children in the Gardere neighborhood of Baton Rouge, where many of the families are moving.

"I believe those buildings should be taken out of the trailer park and put somewhere where they could do the most good in Baker or Baton Rouge," said Sam Sammartino, disaster response director for the Diocese of Baton Rouge. "You could bring in child-advocacy groups, people who deal with families in crisis, mental health counselors. There is a spectrum of things that go on in those buildings that could help people move on with their life and out of poverty."

Wanda Galmon's family highlights that potential.

Every morning Galmon, 25, walks her two youngest children to Early Head Start and Head Start buildings on the opposite end of the trailer park. There they soak up early reading and social skills in a place where their mother can easily visit. Three of Galmon's middle children attend nearby Progress Elementary School, including Timothy, a mischievous, talkative 8-year-old who gets into less trouble at school than he did a year ago. During the months the family lived in Houston immediately after the storm, Timothy refused to speak and earned all D's and F's in school.

The oldest, Leonard, 11, attends Crestwood Middle School. Leonard, always bright, has grown into an older brother with fatherlike tendencies, who can often get his five younger siblings to sit down and read. Between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., the four older Galmon children work on homework in the after-school program and then run sack races or play dodgeball until sunset. Galmon, who has worked several fast-food jobs and is seeking another, already has strong reason to believe her children will surpass her 10th-grade education level. One afternoon Leonard returned from school with mixed feelings about a challenge posed by his teacher. She suggested the boy, an aspiring scientist, enter a science fair for Crestwood's seventh- and eighth-graders, even though he is just a sixth-grader. The boy wanted to examine airplane speed, but he worried he didn't have the time and the supplies.

That afternoon a counselor at the trailer park took Leonard to buy supplies. She stayed with him through the evening as he worked feverishly to create the display, building model airplanes and then using their size, shape and diameter to calculate velocity. He finished near midnight.

The next day, his science project won first place at Crestwood.

Making progress

Although not all children have excelled like Leonard, the principal at Progress and several trailer park workers say they have seen several of the youngsters thrive with the extra stability and support. Initially, Henry said, many of the Renaissance Village children attended only sporadically, and their grades and behavior reflected the trauma they had been through.

Now, she said, their attendance, grades and behavior are on a par with the rest of the students. "Academically, they have really kind of shocked me," she said.

Just as the new bonds strengthened, though, they are ending.

With the deadline looming and through the help of her mother, Galmon found a Baton Rouge home for her family for $865 a month. Trusting her mother, she signed a lease without seeing the place herself.

Though Galmon plans to visit family in New Orleans regularly, she has no desire to move back, worried about crime and that the city will not be the same.

"It wouldn't feel like home anymore," she said. "I've gotten used to it here."

Galmon attended Woodson Middle School and Cohen High School in New Orleans, dropping out after her sophomore year. She had Leonard when she was 13. The mother has serious health problems, including chronic asthma, but always planned to look for a job at a fast-food restaurant in preparation for when the FEMA-HUD rent subsidies for former trailer park residents end in 2009. Last week, she accepted a job as a housekeeper in a large hotel.

She cannot wait to leave the trailer, where she lacks the wiggle room even to make up the bed. But weeks before the scheduled move, Galmon said she knew little about her new neighborhood or how to get around Baton Rouge, by bus or car. She was unsure where her youngest children will attend Head Start, or where the schools her older children will attend are located.

She has few friends in Baton Rouge.

Such uncertainties frighten the staff who work with the families at Renaissance Village.

"What's the difference between May 31 and Aug. 31 if we can make sure residents are in permanent housing and they will be able to stay there?" said Arcenia Crayton, who runs the teen center.

FEMA officials have described the situation as an opportunity for flood victims to marshal self-reliance, help from caseworkers and the financial boost from the HUD-FEMA Disaster Housing Assistance Program to get on with their lives.

Many are. Every day at Renaissance Village, newly vacant trailers are towed away and children scatter along with their families.

Galmon learned in mid-April that she can move into her new home in a week.

"I'm ready to go," she said.

Though desperate to leave, she decided to sleep with her family in the trailer a little longer, through April at least, so they will not have to leave their schools mid-month.

Helping advance Angola

fro the Journal Sentinel Online

Consultant builds African client base
By RICK ROMELL

It's one of those things that started with college students talking earnestly over coffee.

They were in Iowa, but their interest was the Third World and how best to help develop it economically. Someday, they said, they'd go into business together and do just that.

That was nearly 20 years ago, but the ocean-spanning friendships those conversations forged explain how a key piece of the development efforts of the African nation of Angola came to be handled from a small suite of offices in the YWCA building on N. King Drive.

Those would be the offices of Pinnacle XL Inc., an eight-employee management consulting firm that, improbably, draws about half its sales from Angola, a country that for decades was crippled by civil war but now is booming on the strength of its oil riches.

"It's really blossomed for us," Pinnacle founder and president KeleMarie Lyons said of the firm's business in Angola, where the economy has grown at double-digit rates each year since 2004. Originally from Dubuque, Lyons, 39, studied at Iowa State University and after graduating came to Milwaukee, eventually became a partner in a marketing firm and, about seven years ago, started Pinnacle.

Coincidentally, the long, bitter war in Angola was nearing its end. When peace came in 2002, one of Lyons' friends from her college days, a native of the country, returned home and became an investment banker.

He got in touch with Lyons and suggested she visit Angola and check out the business opportunities there. Her parents and many friends here had one word for her: Don't.

"They were scared for me," Lyons said. "They think of Angola as a war-torn country . . . but I knew it was something I had to do."

So she did. Before long, Pinnacle was involved in a joint venture halfway around the world, and one deal led to another. Lyons found herself flying into Luanda, Angola's capital, almost every other month.

At first, she expected to be overwhelmed by poverty and misery, but it didn't turn out that way.

"People were very happy and they're very thankful for the opportunities that they have, and even in business they're absolutely thrilled to get new input, new ideas," Lyons said.

Among clients Lyons has worked with in Angola are a food distributor, an airport services firm and one of the country's larger banks, where she helped reorganize the marketing department and created internal systems to monitor ongoing projects.

Most prominent, though, is Pinnacle's work for the National Private Investment Agency, the arm of the government that seeks to foster foreign investment in Angola. Pinnacle and Lyons publish an agency magazine that promotes the country and send out an electronic newsletter on business developments.

Lyons is learning Portuguese, the primary business language in Angola, and has picked up other lessons as well, such as to make sure you have a local partner to help you with cultural and bureaucratic intricacies.

Compared with the United States, she said, business relationships in Angola are much more hierarchical and formal. Titles are always used with names, she said. Because she's a college graduate, she's "Doctora Lyons" or, as she prefers, "Doctora KeleMarie."

"It's kind of the way I imagine the United States was maybe in the '70s or '60s," she said. "Remember, you see in these older movies where there's a man in a big executive office and the secretary's outside (and the boss says,) 'Rose, get me some coffee.' It's a lot like that."

Some things feel familiar, too. Angola has much fertile land, with lots of room for agricultural growth, and among Lyons' clients was a farming operation near the city of Waku Kungo that she visited.

"It felt like home," she said. "It felt like Iowa - miles and miles of cornfields."

Angola faces huge problems. Landmines litter the countryside and have injured or killed more than 400 people since 2004, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

Once a major agricultural exporter, the country imports more than half its food and ranks in the lowest 10% of world nations on most socioeconomic measures, according to the U.S. State Department.

Internet Game Free Rice Helps Feed the Hungry

from Bella Online

The Internet is a valuable resource that provides many services, educational opportunities, and hours of entertainment no matter where one lives.

Sadly, hunger continues to plague our world. According to the United Nations, more than 25,000 people die every day due to hunger, malnutrition and hunger related issues. Tragically, the majority of those deaths are children under five years of age.

Several years ago, a self-employed computer programmer from Indiana, John Breen, created several charitable websites including The Poverty Site, The Rainforest Site and The Hunger Site. The Hunger Site has more than 200,000 visitors to the site, every day. In 2007, Breen launched his newest project, Free Rice. The no-cost Internet game educates and entertains players, and also encourages giving in the simplest of ways.

To play the challenging game, users are shown a vocabulary word. Players must select the correct definition from four multiple choice possibilities. If the correct definition is chosen, 20 grains of rice will be donated to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). If five correct words are selected in a row, 100 grains of rice will be donated to the cause. The game is not only incredibly simple to play, it is seriously addictive.

Thousands of words are included in the Free Rice vocabulary database with new words being added. Vocabulary words automatically adjust to the correct difficulty level for each player and more than 50 different levels are included. When three answers in a row are correct, the user proceeds to the next level. If the wrong answer is selected, the level is automatically reduced. For those who require additional assistance, click the speaker symbol next to the word and the word will be read aloud.

Players do not actually donate money. Playing is totally free. The donated rice is paid for by advertisements from sponsors listed on the Free Rice website. All of the revenue from the Free Rice game is donated to The United Nations World Food Program, who then distributes the donated rice.

While a single grain of rice may not sound like much, consider this; 830 grains of rice were donated on the first day the game was launched in 2007. Today, over 26,000,000,000 grains of rice have been donated and more than 500,000 people visit the website daily.

Whether playing alone or as a class project, Free Rice is a popular word game that is fun and educational and helps nourish impoverished and malnourished people around the globe, one grain of rice at a time.

Food bank's shelves may soon me bare

from KGET

UN Gives Poor Farmers $200 million to Cope With Food Crisis

from the Digital Journal

By Bob Ewing

The United Nations rural development arm announced today that it is providing up to $200 million for poor farmers during the upcoming cropping season.

UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is providing up to $200 million for poor farmers during the upcoming cropping season as it tries to alleviate the suffering of hundreds of millions of people facing hunger and malnutrition due to soaring food prices.

“The capacity of the world’s 450 million smallholder farmers to respond by growing more food is at risk because of spiralling energy and fertiliser prices,” said Lennart Båge, President of the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

“Poor farmers are not reaping the benefits of higher food prices because they cannot afford the fertiliser or seeds to plant next season’s crops.”

The UN press release says that Båge, was speaking after a meeting of the agency’s Executive Board in Rome when he called for concerted comprehensive and coordinated action to be taken by the international community to prevent the slide of millions into abject poverty.

“Poor rural farmers are central to any solution to today’s global food crisis and the long-term problems of hunger and poverty,” Mr. Båge noted.


Båge proposed a three-pronged strategy: providing emergency food aid to feed the hungry today; supporting, in the short term, smallholder farmers in their bid to plan next season’s crops; and longer-term investment in agriculture to ensure food security, nutrition and rural development.

“The world has under-invested in agriculture and rural development for far too long,” the President stated. “It is high time to put this right.”

Pleas for poverty grants soaring

from the BBC

A charity which helps people facing severe financial hardship says it has seen a dramatic rise in the number of requests for help.

Elizabeth Finn Care spends £4m each year in grants to help people avoid falling into poverty.

Requests for grants have increased by 400% in the past six weeks, it says.

The charity says the rise is caused by the increasing costs of fuel, food and bills, which means many families are struggling to make ends meet.

Brian Clover, director of casework at Elizabeth Finn Care, told BBC Radio 5 Live that more young families were contacting them than ever before.

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

A family works out their weekly budget

They are seeking small weekly grants to help pay for basic needs or one-off sums for essential items such as washing machines or refrigerators.

Mr Clover said: "The last six to eight weeks has seen a really significant increase.

"It's basic stuff. It's the price of food, the price of petrol, it's gas and electricity bills, and it's tipping them over the edge."

No savings

The government had pledged to halve the number of children living in poverty from 3.4m in 1998 to 1.7m in 2010.

Progress has been made and ministers say they are on track to meet the target.

But critics say the economic climate means the outlook for families is more gloomy than before.

Anne Longfield, from charity 4Children, said severe poverty amounted to living on about £7,000 a year or £19 a day.

"About 84% of families in severe poverty say they can't make regular savings," Ms Longfield told BBC Radio 5 Live.

Canada deaf to growing hunger crisis, UN aide says

from the Globe and Mail

SINCLAIR STEWART AND PAUL WALDIE

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

NEW YORK and TORONTO — A key adviser to the United Nations has sharply criticized Canada for abandoning its leadership role in international development, and urged the country to step up its level of aid to poorer countries in the face of soaring food prices.

Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world's best-known economists, accused the Harper government yesterday of adopting an “antagonistic,” and occasionally “mocking,” tone toward the implementation of the UN's Millennium Development Goals, a group of objectives aimed at alleviating problems ranging from poverty to global warming.

“We've seen essentially no global leadership from Canada on poverty, hunger, disease, climate change and foreign assistance,” Mr. Sachs, who is a special adviser to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said in an interview at his Manhattan home. “This has been a huge surprise for me as a lifelong admirer of Canada, that we don't see the ambition of the Canadian people manifested in Canada's policies right now.”

The UN has issued an urgent plea for food aid because of an unprecedented rise in grain prices. The agency's World Food Program, which dispenses food to developing countries, said it needs an additional $755-million (U.S.) just to meet its annual target. The sudden rise in prices for corn, wheat, rice and soybeans, among other crops, has sparked violent protests in Haiti, Africa and parts of Asia.

“This steeply rising price of food — it has developed into a real global crisis,” Mr. Ban said yesterday in Vienna. He added that the UN, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will meet next week in Bern, Switzerland, in an effort to address the problem.

“We must take immediate action in a concerted way,” the Secretary-General said.

Canada donated $176-million (Canadian) to the UN food program last year, making it the third-largest contributor. International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda has yet to respond to the latest appeal, but a spokeswoman said the minister would be making an announcement next week. It is expected that Canada will increase its aid significantly to help with the deficit.

The Canadian government has committed to providing the program with the cash equivalent of 420,000 tonnes of wheat annually, but it has missed that target several times. (Under current conditions, buying that much wheat today would cost roughly 60 per cent more than last year.)

In 2005, Canada also revamped its food aid policy. Until then, 90 per cent of Canadian food aid had to be bought from Canadian producers. The change dropped that quota to 50 per cent, making it easier for aid agencies to respond to emergencies by sourcing food closer to the affected region.

Mr. Sachs, among others, has been a vocal critic of the “blank cheque” approach to foreign aid, and has argued that donor countries should instead be focusing on sustainable development and support for agriculture and research.

However, he said his pleas for Canada to take a special role in agricultural matters have fallen upon deaf ears dating back to the government of former prime minister Paul Martin.

“Canada did not show leadership on critical issues, like agriculture, for example, where I was shocked by discussions I had in Ottawa,” he said. “Then the [Martin] government fell, and this government has come in and it's been antagonistic, rhetorically and in policy. It's almost mocking, some times, with these objectives.”

Despite Canada's status as one of the larger donors, it has failed to meet a commitment to donate 0.7 per cent of its gross domestic product to the Millennium Project, despite a resource boom over the past few years that generated considerable economic wealth.

Mr. Sachs said he was told on one occasion by a cabinet minister that Ottawa couldn't boost its aid to meet this target because it would threaten the country's budget surplus.

The current food crisis has forced many aid organizations to cut their assistance programs this year because they can't afford to buy as much grain as they used. In addition to wheat, other crops have also seen enormous price increases. Canola has nearly doubled while corn, rice and soybean have also reached record prices this year.

“We are in this terrible dilemma,” said Jim Cornelius, executive director of the Winnipeg-based Canadian Foodgrains Bank, which provides food aid to dozens of countries on behalf of 15 church organizations.

Mr. Cornelius said the charity received a record amount of cash donations from Canadians last year, but the money doesn't go as far as it used to. “If we don't see some fairly significant changes [to grain prices] there's probably a 40-per-cent decline in the amount of food we can provide,” he said.

Drought, increased demand from countries like China and India, and the diversion of corn into ethanol production have all been blamed for the unprecedented spike. Yet others argue this situation has been exacerbated by massive speculation by big investors.

U.S. Scrambles to Address International Food Crisis

from the Washington Post

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Bush administration and Congress have been caught flat-footed by rapidly escalating global food prices and are scrambling to respond to a crisis that they increasingly view as a threat to U.S. national security, according to government officials, congressional staffers and human rights experts.

The White House released $200 million in emergency wheat stores for developing countries last week, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the administration is planning "further steps to help ease the burden of rising food prices on the world's neediest people." Options include building more overseas storage facilities and roads to reduce food spoiling, and making the food crisis a top priority for the G-8 summit of industrialized nations in July, administration officials said.

Top Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are pressing the White House to devote more money to emergency food aid -- up from $350 million to $550 million -- as part of a supplemental Iraq war budget package.

But administration officials and legislative aides acknowledge that they have only recently begun to focus on the severity of the problem, and humanitarian groups fear that assistance from the United States, which already supplies about half of the world's total food aid, may come too late to provide much benefit in the near term.

The mounting crisis, which has unseated Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Édouard Alexis and prompted riots throughout the developing world, provides a particular challenge for President Bush during his final months in office. Although Bush has received many positive reviews for his initiatives to combat HIV-AIDS and malaria, he is hobbled by dismal approval ratings and bitter relations with a Democratic Congress during a presidential election year.

One senior White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because internal discussions were underway, said the crisis "is getting a lot of attention, not just at the White House but throughout the administration."

"When you've got instability or rioting in the streets in Egypt and Haiti and Indonesia, that will garner significant attention," the official said. "What we're looking at is a combination of both short- and medium-to-long-term policy issues to address this."

Prices for rice, corn, wheat and other food staples have skyrocketed in recent months, driven by record oil costs, severe droughts, the diversion of corn for ethanol use and rapidly growing demand in China and India, according to U.N. officials and other experts. In some of the poorest countries of Africa and Asia, where food costs can consume three-quarters of household income, prices have more than doubled in six months.

The escalating prices have sparked riots in more than a dozen nations, from Cameroon to Bangladesh to the Philippines. World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick warns that more than 30 nations are at risk of social unrest from the crisis and that at least 100 million additional people could be pushed into poverty in coming months.

The crisis has even spilled over into the United States, where Costco and other retailers have implemented limits on rice purchases. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has scheduled a hearing on the impact of rising food prices on U.S. families.

Some rice-growing countries such as Vietnam and India have blocked exports of the grain in an attempt to stabilize their domestic markets, further increasing pressure on global prices. Pakistan's food minister Thursday raised the prospect of similar steps in Islamabad.

Administration officials say they are particularly concerned about the possible security ramifications of the food crisis, and the topic is receiving increased attention from the National Security Council and its staff. Many of the affected countries -- including Egypt, Indonesia and two of the world's nuclear powers, India and Pakistan -- are of strategic interest to Washington.

Andrew S. Natsios, who served as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2001 to 2006, said, "The consequences of this in terms of political stability is very frightening."

Natsios, who now teaches at Georgetown University, said the current crisis is notable in part because it has hit particularly hard in urban areas, in addition to rural regions that are more commonly affected by food shortages. If that pattern holds, he said, the crisis will be even more likely to result in more violence and political upheaval.

Jennifer Parmelee, Washington spokeswoman for the U.N. World Food Program, said, "Everybody recognizes that this is not just a moral issue; this is a security issue, as well," adding: "Something has to be done."

The crisis also has the potential to undermine the Bush administration's efforts to combat other global scourges. Retired Navy Rear Adm. Tim Ziemer, who coordinates the president's malaria initiative, said yesterday that the food crisis complicates the fight against HIV-AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

"Certainly if we save a child or mother of HIV or malaria and they die of hunger, that is unconscionable, too," Ziemer said yesterday.

The World Food Program, which is the single largest recipient of U.S. food aid, provides a stark example of food-price inflation: On March 3, the group's purchase price for rice in Bangkok was $460 per metric ton; five weeks later, it was $780.

Overall, the U.N. agency needs about $800 million in emergency funding to reach its annual goal of feeding 78 million people, and that does not account for additional waves of people being plunged into poverty by the rising prices, Parmelee said.

Last week, the Bush administration released $200 million worth of wheat and shipping costs from a trust fund set up to administer emergency food aid, according to the Agency for International Development. The United States provides more than $2 billion in total food aid each year, administration officials said.