Ending Hunger in America, 2014 Hunger Report Full Report | Page 163

CHAPTER 5
point is that nothing like them has been tried before. The MDGs are the longest-standing
global agreement to fight poverty in human history. That’s why it would be a major step
backward for the whole world if the MDGs turned out to be a short-lived, one-off experiment.
The next round of goals must be universal, requiring all countries to end hunger and
poverty at home and work together to support leadership in low-income countries where
the effort will require support from
outside. Unlike in 2000, when the
MDGs were established, 72 percent
of the world’s poor people now live
in middle-income countries.6 To
end hunger and poverty, a future
set of goals will have to apply to
middle-income and high-income
countries as well.
Global development goals that
apply to every country may well be
necessary to win widespread political support for a new round of goals.
The balance of power in the world
has shifted since the MDGs were
negotiated. Large middle-income
countries such as China, India, and
Brazil—home to many of the poor
people who now live in middleincome countries—are unlikely to let high-income countries escape setting goals of their own.8
In 2012, nearly 49 million people in the United Sates lived in households that experienced
hunger or struggle to keep food on the table.7 This report starts by arguing for a goal to end
hunger and poverty in the United States. We need these goals to drive progress just as they
have in Ethiopia and Bangladesh.
The United States has not made significant progress against poverty since the mid-1970s.
Many Americans have come to think the current levels of poverty are inevitable, the new
normal. When Americans hear that the world as a whole has made great progress against
poverty, they sometimes become more open to the possibility of dramatically reducing
hunger and poverty in our own country. At the same time, if we can achieve progress against
poverty and inequality in the United States, American voters may become more inclined to
favor increasing U.S. support for poverty reduction worldwide.

38.5 percent:

the world land
area dedicated to
agriculture.3

UN Photo/Kibae Park

A child in Dhaka’s Karial
slum, Bangladesh.

By 2050 food production needs to increase by 70
percent, but the total arable area in developing
countries may increase by no more than 12 percent,
mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.4
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