44 Billion Dollars a Year- 1$ a Week per Every Well-Off Person - Would END World Hunger

In the latest World Summit on Food Security held in Rome in November 2009, FAO stated that it would take $44 billion a year to put an end to world hunger. Does it sound like a lot of money? Governments say it does, as they do not have so much money and it is a utopia to think they can ever get such an amount. However, governments do not say that in 2007, the expenditure in arms was more than 30 times greater ($1,340 billion), just to set an example. Or that $44 billion is more or less the budget of Beijing-based Olympic Games of 2008. The only thing necessary to end world hunger is just politicians’ willpower.

www.deliveringdata.com...

What would it really cost to end global hunger? The United Nations estimates that it would take at least $30 billion per year to solve the food crisis, mainly by boosting agricultural productivity in the developing world. Over the decade that it would take to make sustainable improvements in the lives of the 862 million undernourished people, that amounts to $300 billion.

Three hundred billion dollars is a lot of money, and the U.S. government won't foot the bill alone. But it's less than half of 1% of the world's combined gross domestic products, not an unreasonable sum to invest in ending the misery and degradation of hunger. After all, Congress shelled out $21 billion last year for foreign aid and this week it approved $162 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for fiscal 2009. The U.S. spent $340 billion in 2006 alone on public and private research and development. Directing just one-tenth of that seed money to sustainable, high-yield agriculture in the developing world could trigger a second Green Revolution.

articles.latimes.com...


The Military Budget of US alone is 711 billion dollars, which is over 16 times more than it would take to end the hunger in the world. If every advanced country in the world decided to do skip a small part of their national defense budget. Iceland for example has none.

When doing a quick estimate, we can estimate that there are around billion people, who are better of than the rest of the people and can afford many extra luxuries. It would cost us 1 dollar a week to end the hunger in the world. Is that too much? Skipping a chocolate, coke or an ice-cream weekly.

Just some interesting facts in comparison. Nothing against USA, US statistics are easiest to find It is a problem everywhere, although probably US is leading many such statistics per capita.

Wasted energy costs us around $146 billion each year for Americans.
Food American end up tossing away costs a collective $165 billion.
$76 billion is spent on Sodas
$31 billion is spent on Lottery Tickets
$71 billion is LOST at slot machines or tables.
$2.1 billion is spent on tattoos.
$117 billion is spent on fast food.
Even lawn-care takes more money in a year than it would take to end world hunger...
A total of $705 billion was spent on Entertainment

It just makes me sad looking at all those statistics. We spend so much on stuff we really do not need at all, while billion people are starving world-wide.

As far as I can see, everything is just in the Willpower of Politicians. The world would a better place if they wanted so. Instead of ending the world war they have decided to spend the necessary money in building nuclear bombs, firearms and wars, And what is the saddest part, it would only take buying 1/30 of the budget spent on firearms...

reply to post by Cabin


How about even a quarter a week? According to your numbers would be about 11 billion.....Too bad someone HONEST couldn't start it and make sure it ends hunger....

My feelings are whoever did this would pocket 86% like mostly all charities and we would be in the same boat.....

Those statistics you have are very upsetting.....70+ billion spent on soda? What's that cost to produce? $100,000 with labor? Just sick the profit margins and people don't care!!

But where would be the profit in ending world hunger?

Silly entitlement culture, who ever said you were entitled to not starve to death?

/End sarcasm

Im not sure the cost to facilitate and distribute food to all the worlds hungry is included in that figure...

I'd gladly give a few dollars a week if I knew the money wouldn't be pissed away and mismanaged, especially by the UN. Why doesn't Bill Gates and his wife with their foundation focus on this, in addition to his vaccination programs?
Bill, it's great that you help out third world countries with your vaccination programs, but it does no good if the people end up starving to death.

This makes no sense. This is assuming every person could give a dollar a week. 80% of the world population is dirt poor. It would be more like 20% of the people giving thousands of dollars a week.

It takes a lot more than just throwing a bunch of money at the problem. Once you feed them they will just be hungry again so you will need to keep repeating this process of billions in aid until you fix the underlying problems.

All your doing with this proposal is feeding them without giving them the tools to sustain themselves.

The countries with high malnutrition rates often are run by very corrupt governments, you need to get rid of these so the people are allowed to farm and build their economies.

You need foreign investments into these poor countries to help build the economies so the people can work decent jobs and sustain themselves.

You need to introduce GMO seeds to these poor countries on a mass scale so they can grow a larger range of crops in many of their harsh environments.

You need to eliminate farm subsidies which are deflating world prices of crops so these farmers in poor nations can actually sell their product and make it worthwhile to produce.

So many things need to be done to fix world hunger, simply buying everyone a loaf of bread isn't going to fix the problem for more than a few hours before they are hungry again.

I kinda doubt that number, but I'm going to assume it's legitimate. I'm certain that it would require a functioning system to distribute it. In most of the places that I know of where real, life threatening hunger is endemic, the governments in those locations are at best dysfunctional and corrupt and at worst the cause of the hunger to begin with.

Ten times that amount of money will do no good if the governments and institutions that do the end distribution to the people that need it are corrupt.

reply to post by jjkenobi


In the world there is roughly 7 billion people.

1 billion people is about 14% of worlds people. There are definetely 14% of people, who are well-off.

1 $ a week= 1 billion dollars a week.

There are 52 weeks in a year. 52 x 1 billion= 52 billion dollars.

The rough estimate had even a bit extra

For around 44 billion dollars around 880 million people would have to spare 1 dollar a week

reply to post by Hopechest

What would it really cost to end global hunger? The United Nations estimates that it would take at least $30 billion per year to solve the food crisis, mainly by boosting agricultural productivity in the developing world. Over the decade that it would take to make sustainable improvements in the lives of the 862 million undernourished people, that amounts to $300 billion.

It doesn't matter how much money you have. Go to Somalia and try and give food to the poor and see what happens to you. You criticize military spending? How are you going to operate your food drive without protection? We tried feeding the poor in that country 20 years ago and armed gangs took the food and still do to this day. The Red Cross can not safely do it's job there.

And that is just one of many countries where you can't feed the poor. I admire your childlike enthusiasm but it won't work in the real world.

Originally posted by Cabin
reply to post by Hopechest

 

What would it really cost to end global hunger? The United Nations estimates that it would take at least $30 billion per year to solve the food crisis, mainly by boosting agricultural productivity in the developing world. Over the decade that it would take to make sustainable improvements in the lives of the 862 million undernourished people, that amounts to $300 billion.

And zero details.

Do they say how they plan to boost the productivity? You know, people would be growing all the food they need over there if it weren't for the multitude of issues I listed so how does 30 billion a year address any of these issues?

Is the UN going to get rid of American farm subsidies? Are they going to use that 30 billiion to get rid of all the corrupt governments who keep their population poor and hungry to retain power?