World Hunger Day call for collaborations to end hunger
By Alan Browde
There are so many ‘Days’ in the calendar, commemorating one thing or another: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, World Bee Day, Boss’s Day, Secretaries Day and, this week, World Hunger Day.
There’s obviously nothing wrong with focusing on important things and people in one’s life, but the problem is that these ‘days’ can become invitations to perfunctorily shop or donate in order to salve our consciences.
Many argue that the point of these ‘days’ is to raise awareness about important issues and this, of course, is a positive thing. But, using World Hunger Day as an example, the bottom line is that the over 700 million chronically hungry people around the world do not need ‘awareness prodding’, they need access to enough affordable, nutritious food on a daily basis. Every day for them is ‘Hunger Day!
How then can we transform the awareness created by Hunger Day into sustainable and positive action? Perhaps the strategy of SA Harvest can shed some light.
In South Africa the facts are well documented. Ten million tons of good food goes to waste every year while 20 million people go hungry every day. The immediate need then is to rescue the food that would have gone to landfill (and, by the way, add significantly to the massive threat of climate change) and to get it safely to those who are hungry.
This is what SA Harvest does and, in the last 14 months, we have delivered an equivalent of over 5-million meals to community-based organisations who feed people on a daily basis. Importantly, we do not and cannot do this on our own. It takes a hugely collaborative daily effort between ourselves and a wide range of food vendors large and small, farmers, logistics companies, IT companies, individual and corporate donors, other NGOs and many others.
Then there’s the side of SA Harvest that tries to intervene in whatever way we can in the systemic issues that cause hunger in the first place. The sustainable solution is to deal with the inequities and the injustices of a food system in which there is a surplus of food that so many, including millions of children, cannot access.
Top of the list of interventions is to work towards ensuring that, Section 27(1)(b) of the Bill of Rights, which states that “everyone (South African) has the right to have access to sufficient food ….”, is fulfilled.
There are many actions that can be taken to see this done. These include both legal and practical, on-the-ground strategies, in which SA Harvest is investing a good deal of time and resources.
Ending hunger in our country is a long and arduous task. But it is possible! We should not be daunted by the enormity of what has to be done. Importantly, to reiterate, no single organisation, from government through to civil society structures and individuals can do it alone. Success will come about through collaboration between all the players and people in our country.
So, please don’t let World Hunger Day be just another day in your life. Find out how you can make your contribution not a one-day affair but rather an ongoing, meaningful and sustainable one.
Let your first step be to contact SA Harvest to see if we can help you get involved.
Alan Browde is the CEO of SA Harvest. SA Harvest is a food rescue organisation whose mission is to end hunger through systemic interventions and leveraging innovative technology. In the last 18 months, it has delivered 5,2 million meals to over 70 beneficiaries countrywide and is involved in several projects aimed at empowering food-vulnerable people through entrepreneurship.
- 690 million people are living in chronic hunger
- 130 million additional people may be pushed into chronic hunger by the COVID-19 pandemic
