"A failure to address the problem of chronic hunger when the means are available to do so – and they are – is, to put it very bluntly, murder on a large scale. Many people shudder at the use of such words, but, as a result of negligence, one in 8 humans will die many years before they should, often very young, simply because we have failed to ensure that they have enough to eat. "

In this interview Mr. Andrew MacMillan, Director of FAO’s Field Operations Division, talks about the lessons learned from the vast Brazilian initiative against hunger, Fome Zero.

The world already produces enough food to feed all its inhabitants and there also exists technical know-how to improve nutrition and increase access to food. What is missing to reach food security?

During the celebrations for FAO’s 60 th Anniversary, both the Director-General and President Lula chose quotations from the paper entitled The Work of FAO, which was prepared for FAO’s first Conference by a team led by Dr. Frank McDougall, 60 years ago. President Lula chose to refer to the “vision of paradise... as a place where food was plentiful and want (carestía) no longer existed”, and the view of our founders that this paradise on earth could be achieved.

This sums up what many of us concerned with food security believe – that it is entirely feasible, if the political will is present, to eradicate hunger in the world within a short time frame. Unfortunately, in both developed and developing countries, more effort is often put into endless discussion – workshops, seminars, academic papers - about how to get rid of hunger rather than into decisive action on a scale that will prolong and enrich people’s lives. The search for “perfect” solutions will never end. It simply delays action. In the meantime people are dying.

The world unfortunately still seems to wake up to the problems of hunger only when it becomes so extreme that people are on the brink of starvation and television images of emaciated children temporarily disturb the complacency of those who enjoy the comforts of life. Of course, there must be an adequate humanitarian response to situations of acute hunger. It is, however, the continuing existence on a vast scale of the chronic hunger that the Brazilian Josué de Castro, Chairman of the FAO Council from 1951 to 1955, describes so clearly in his work that makes such large numbers of people so vulnerable to disaster when shocks, such as droughts, floods or price collapses, hit them.

Chronic hunger is a killer: a slow killer. It exposes people to weakness and disease. It robs them of opportunities in life and undermines their self-respect. It perpetuates poverty and holds back economic growth. Its existence contravenes the most basic of human rights, the right to adequate food. A failure to address the problem of chronic hunger when the means are available to do so – and they are – is, to put it very bluntly, murder on a large scale. Many people shudder at the use of such words, but, as a result of negligence, one in 8 humans will die many years before they should, often very young, simply because we have failed to ensure that they have enough to eat. The absurdity is that, at the same time, nearly as many humans are shortening their own lives by over-eating – a kind of mass suicide.

What are the steps other countries could take to make large- scale deliberate actions against hunger?

Brazil is a good example of what countries need to do to fight against hunger. President Lula set the lead with the launch of its Zero Hunger Programme (Programa Fome Zero) in January 2003. He was faithful to the vision of FAO’s founders and to the thinking of Josué de Castro. Both saw hunger eradication at the top of the list of priorities for the new FAO. President Lula saw that getting rid of hunger was the number one priority for his new government.

The significance of the Fome Zero Programme from an international perspective lies in six lessons that other countries could well emulate.

First and foremost, the importance of leadership and focus. Through Fome Zero, the President of a very large and widely admired developing country has put hunger eradication at the top of his list of priorities: he has been passionate about it and he has stuck firmly to this goal. In so doing he challenged conventional thinking that hunger would disappear as a result of economic growth and consequent poverty reduction.

Second, the need for boldness. The Fome Zero target is absolute in that it is a commitment to rid Brazil of hunger within a 4 year period. There is nothing better than a non-compromising and ambitious target for getting people spurred into action on a large scale. It forces those responsible to work back from the goal and put in place all the measures required to attain it, rather than take the moore conventional approach of trying to scale up what is already going on – when the reaction of the civil servant is to recite a catalogue of constraints and risks, and to move step by step. A bold goal may raise expectations unduly – as it did - and there is a high risk that it is simply not possible to have 100% success within the time frame, but it is better to take that risk than to set the sights lower. There is no way in which you can generate the same sense of urgency – when governments are confronted with so many immediate tasks – when aiming for a “halving” goal (such as the World Food Summit target) to be achieved in 20 or 15 years’ time. It is only now that governments see that there are only 10 years to go, that they are beginning to take the Millennium Development Goals seriously.

Third, the need to engage society as a whole. From the outset, Brazil made getting rid of hunger a truly national goal, not something to be left to Government alone. I remember the cartoon booklet prepared by Frei Betto which showed Lula kicking off the football on the front page while the back page showed it landing on a pitch crowded with Brazilians with the caption “Now the ball is in your court”. The “mutirão” mobilised a huge popular response, and getting rid of hunger immediately became a matter of national pride. The creation of the the National Council for Food and Nutrition Security, the CONSEA, bringing together all key players, provided the formal institutional mechanism for broadening engagement in the Programme – and keeping the pressure on government to perform its functions. The CONSEA has been instrumental in bringing the draft law on Food and Nutrition Security, based on the Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food, before the National Assembly.

Fourth, the advantages of addressing the different categories of hungry people through simultaneous targeted programmes. Fome Zero was designed to address the particular needs of all categories of people suffering from chronic or acute hunger and malnutrition with a wide range of different targeted measures. It addressed both production and access dimensions of food insecurity, and tried to link the two together – for instance through supplementary milk rations supplied from local production by poor families. In this way it put into practice the twin-track approach to reducing hunger, called for by FAO, but still to be taken up by many governments. The fact that the three Ministers (of Social Development, Agrarian Development and Education) round this table each play a major role in reducing hunger is testimony of the breadth of the Programme.

Fifth, to combine immediate large-scale action with learning and iterative corrections. Fome Zero, by its sheer ambition implied huge risks, but at the same time it was quick to learn from its own experience: the idealism with which the programme was launched – focussing strongly on addressing the structural, or social exclusion, causes of hunger – gave way to pragmatism. After a year, the emphasis shifted from altering the complex dependency relationships between the poor and the powerful in rural areas to making sure that very large numbers of poor families, mostly in the towns, had enough to eat. Only in this way – and without attaching too many conditionalities – could the President’s target come close to being met. It means that there is still much structural – and cultural - change needed if the programme is to permanently eradicate hunger, but this, by its very nature, will take more than 4 years. Already it is good to see from the latest budget that the “structural” components – land reform, support for small farmers, purchases of small farmer output - of the programme are to grow more quickly in the coming year than the social components.

What is the main challenge and contribution of the Fome Zero programme?

I believe Fome Zero illustrates that, once the political will is present, the issues in designing and implementing large-scale anti-hunger programme are essentially institutional rather than technical. The programmes are complex and need really good management arrangements – building up accurate registers of qualified beneficiaries, making sure that programme successfully targets those who really are in need, monitoring performance, taking stock of results.

What I am claiming is that the main international contribution of Fome Zero is the example which it is setting to the rest of the world. I am confident that when stock is taken of its achievements, it will show for others that it really is feasible to bring down the incidence of hunger very rapidly, and that when people are adequately fed this not only respects human rights but also generates economic benefits. If these claims can be made, and if they can be combined with the visionary leadership which President Lula, together with the leaders of France, Chile, Spain and other countries, is already offering internationally in the fight against hunger, the vision of Josué de Castro of a hunger-free world can quickly become reality.

Zero Hunger Programme Brazil’s Zero Hunger Programme (Programa Fome Zero) was launched by President Lula in 2003 as a public policy to eradicate hunger and social exclusion in this country. The Zero Hunger Programme has two parallel strategies to fight hunger in Brazil similar to the Twin Track Approach promoted by FAO: in the short term it has given emergency responses to provide food for the hungry and in the long-term it aims to improve professional training, reduce poverty and stimulate food production. The programme is developed in partnership with state and municipal governments. Members of Civil Society gather in the National Council for Food and Nutrition Security (CONSEA in Portuguese) which has a consultative character and serves as a mechanism to guarantee interaction between civil society and government.

For more information on the Zero Hunger Programme please visit their website at http://www.fomezero.gov.br