Chicago Tribune - December 22, 2003
Michael A. Lev, Tribune foreign correspondent

He also is concerned about the hungry AIDS orphans of Africa, who are among millions of children on the continent in desperate need of help.

Then there is Bangladesh, Morris said, citing another example from the world's 350 million children who don't get enough to eat.

Overall, there are 40 million more hungry people on the planet than there were 10 years ago.

However, Morris said in an interview, there is some good news: China has lifted enough people out of hunger and poverty in the past two decades that it can pull back from receiving WFP help and start to contribute expertise to fighting malnutrition elsewhere.

Morris, 60, became executive director of the Rome-based UN food agency in 2002. He was in Beijing this month to discuss ramping down the agency's program in China and to work out an agreement for the Chinese government to become an active WFP supporter.

There are Chinese nutritionists, emergency response managers and agriculture experts on issues such as growing winter wheat who could help the WFP if the Beijing government follows through on its apparent intentions to sign a cooperative agreement.

"We need to be where the hungriest and poorest people are in the largest numbers without access to resources in their own country, and China doesn't really need us going forward to the same degree it did 25 years ago," Morris said as he finished a series of weekend meetings with government officials.

Since the end of doctrinaire communism in China and the opening up of its economy, Morris estimated that more than 300million and possibly as many as 400 million Chinese have been lifted out of hunger, a huge number that speaks to the extraordinary development of China as well as to its mammoth population.

"They've made the single-largest contribution to reducing hunger and poverty in the world," Morris said.

That's one way of saying that things could be worse than they are--though a conversation with Morris makes clear that it has been tough going in the poverty-alleviation business.

One of the biggest worries of the moment is North Korea, where the WFP feeds 6.4 million people, including 4 million children, but has to suspend benefits periodically when donations dry up because some countries, such as Japan, do not want to work with the North Korean government.

For the past two years, the WFP has been able to generate only about 60 percent of the food and cash it needs for North Korea, which means it has to cut off support to more than 3 million beneficiaries from time to time.

"We are at a point where we again need to cut off benefits after the first of the year," Morris said, although he hopes the U.S. government will agree to increase its current contribution to 100,000 metric tons of grain from 40,000 metric tons. That still would be less than its previous largest contribution of 155,000 metric tons.

Donor countries are reluctant to give because North Korea refuses to allow international monitors free access to the country, creating concerns that food donations for civilians are being siphoned off to the military.

Morris said access has improved but that 43 of 206 counties remain off-limits to monitors. The government also has refused to turn over a list of beneficiary institutions such as hospitals and orphanages.

He said nutrition surveys indicate that the food is going where it is supposed to go. People no longer are dying of starvation in North Korea the way they were in the mid-1990s, and the percentage of underweight and malnourished children has declined dramatically. But there remains the issue of a lack of cooperation from an isolated, paranoid government.

Morris said he doesn't believe the military would be interested in the fortified biscuits and other non-native food supplies such as brown rice that the WFP provides, but "our donors want some assurances, and they are entitled to that. Not having a list of beneficiary institutions has been a serious roadblock for us."

A former chairman of the parent company of Indianapolis Water Co., Morris became head of the WFP after being nominated by the Bush administration to become the U.S. ambassador to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. For 16 years he worked for the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment, a large charitable foundation. Earlier he was the chief of staff to then-Indianapolis Mayor Richard Lugar. A Republican, Lugar now is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and, according to The Indianapolis Star, told the White House and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that Morris should get the WFP job.

Speaking in the cautious diplomatic language required of UN officials, Morris talked about several pressing areas, including Bangladesh, where the WFP feeds 1.2 million schoolchildren but could care for five or 10 times more if it had the resources. He visited the country last week.

In Africa, he said, the scourge of AIDS represents a heavy burden.

"It's the most overwhelming statistic I've ever heard: Today there are 14 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa because their parents have died of HIV/AIDS," said Morris, who acts as a UN special envoy focusing on the humanitarian crisis in southern Africa. "I will never forget being in Zimbabwe and seeing a family of five headed by a 14-year-old girl the same size as my 7-year-old granddaughter. She had nothing. And No. 1, she had been robbed of her childhood."

Morris said there was no way to say for certain what it would take to feed all of the world's hungry children, the neediest of the needy.

There are 840 million hungry people in the world, of which the WFP, on an annual budget of several billion dollars, reaches about 110 million. Other agencies contribute more, but clearly many people live and die hungry.

He said there was no way to say for certain what it would take to assure that all of the world's 350 million desperate children get enough to eat. In raw financial terms, it probably would total $10 billion to $13 billion a year. As a practical matter, it would require an extraordinary display of political will.

"The world needs to agree, to conclude, that somehow the resources have to be available to see that children aren't hungry," he said.

031222
CT031205

Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2003. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.

AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All information contained on this website, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments, is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professionals. Always discuss treatment options with a doctor who specializes in treating HIV.

Copyright ©1980, 2003. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .