Development Works Number 7, December 2012 | Page 2

Nigeria are all expected to expand their economies by
more than 6 percent a year until 2015.
The dramatic reductions in global hunger and extreme
poverty over the past two generations prove that—now,
if not in the past—it is well within human capabilities to
end mass hunger and extreme poverty within a generation.
The deaths from malnutrition of hundreds of thousands of
young children year after year can become not just “preventable,” but prevented.

• In 1990, an estimated 12 million children younger
than 5 died of preventable causes, while by 2011, this
number was less than 7 million. Measuring child mortality in the millions means there is a long way to go.
Still, each year 5 million young lives are being saved,
children who would have died in 1990.
• About 80 percent of the global population now has
access to safe drinking water close to their homes.
• Polio is near eradication: this deadly and disabling disease is vying with guinea worm disease to become the
second disease, after smallpox, eradicated through human effort. The number of polio cases has fallen by
more than 99 percent since 1988.
• The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) began in 2003. In 2012, the United States supported life-saving antiretroviral treatment for more
than 5 million people. The cost of a year’s worth of
antiretroviral medication has dropped to $100. 2012
was also the year that, for the first time, health officials
said that an AIDS-free generation was possible.
• Africa will have the world’s highest rate of economic
growth for at least the next five years, propelled by
seven of the 10 fastest-growing economies. Ethiopia,
Mozambique, Tanzania, Congo, Ghana, Zambia, and

In Search of Options

$1

$80

Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World

Friends who are part of the jjajja (grandmother) group at St. Francis Healthcare Services in Jinja, Uganda, laugh over their lunch.
The group provides health care, education and income-generating opportunities for grandmothers, many of whom take care of
grandchildren orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

In essay 5, we mentioned the importance of enabling
people to become more resilient to outside shocks. People
in poor countries often need exceptional flexibility and creativity just to secure the very basics. To be truly resilient in
the difficult conditions they face, the poorest people may
need not only a “plan B,” but a “plan C,” a “plan D,” and
the ability to combine plans as necessary.
With no possibility of putting money aside for emergencies, families are extremely vulnerable. A minor injury or illness, an increase in food prices, the death of a sheep or goat—
any of these may force a family to cut back on food, take
children out of school, and sell anything of value. Some possible ways of earning more money—perhaps by buying a sewing machine or taking a training course—are now out of the
question. For these families, even a “minor” drought or flood
is beyond catastrophic. Life may become literally impossible.
The 2011 Horn of Africa hunger crisis made headlines
here. It was immediately followed by a drought that received far less Western media coverage—even though it led
to serious food shortages for 18 million people in the Sahel,
the region that borders Africa’s Sahara Desert. It was the
Sahel’s third drought in four years.
How can the cycles of one emergency after another be
interrupted? The 2012 U.N. High-Level Meeting on the
Sahel Crisis concluded that the first order of business is to
establish social safety nets, particularly for women and children. A way to get help before children become severely
malnourished would save lives, suffering, and money.
People need to have their present-day needs met before
they can put energy into a future goal such as preventing
next year’s crisis. Safety net programs are thus a key part of

Recent U.N. estimate of cost
of keeping a child from slipping
into malnutrition

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Recent U.N. estimate
of cost of treating a
child for malnutrition