India Against Corruption pays Tribute to the Murdered, Right To Information Activist, Shehla Massod.

Where there is a will, there is a way. Former Presidents of Brazil and Ghana leads by example in eradicating hunger and poverty.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Former President of Brazil

While the rest of the world has spent the last few years worrying about double-dip recessions and upheavals in the Middle East, the borderless nation of the hungry has continued to suffer in silence. 

It was recognition of the debilitating effects of chronic hunger that led policymakers to include its eradication by 2015 among the Millennium Development Goals. This week, in Washington, that very recognition also undergirded the announcement of this year’s winners of World Food Prize (WFP). 

The award has, since it was instituted in 1987, always gone to agricultural scientists such as M.S. Swaminathan of India — the winner of the first ever WFP award — and sometimes to social entrepreneurs such as Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank, Bangladesh. 

John Agyekum Kufour, Former 

President of Ghana

Yet this time the WFP Foundation sought to highlight the impact that top political leaders could have on the welfare of those afflicted by chronic hunger, if only they chose to foster a deeper commitment to agricultural science that actually translated into policy and results on the ground. 

In doing so, the Foundation chose John Agyekum Kufuor, former President of Ghana and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former President of Brazil, “for their personal commitment and visionary leadership while serving as the presidents of Ghana and of Brazil, respectively, in creating and implementing government policies to alleviate hunger and poverty in their countries”. 

Speaking to a packed audience in the grand Benjamin Franklin hall of the State Department, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah said, “President Kufuor and President Lula da Silva have set the gold standard for presidential leadership in tackling the global challenges of poverty and hunger,” adding that it was necessary to train the next generation of forward-thinking leaders to deliver meaningful results in food security and nutrition.

The two former Presidents were picked for the award, which was created in 1987 by Nobel Peace Prize winner and Green Revolution champion Norman Borlaug, for leading a drastic reduction of hunger and poverty in their respective countries. 

Mr. Kufuor who was the President of Ghana for two terms, during 2001-2009, was said to have implemented major economic and educational policies that increased the quality and quantity of food to Ghanaians, enhanced farmers’ incomes, and improved school attendance and child nutrition through a nationwide feeding program. 

The WFP noted that under Mr. Kufuor’s leadership, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African country to cut in half the proportion of its people who suffer from hunger, and the proportion of people living on less than a dollar per day, on course to meet the Millenium Development Goal for hunger eradication.

Further, Mr. Kufuor prioritised national agricultural policies following which Ghana saw its poverty rate drop from 51.7 per cent in 1991 to 26.5 per cent in 2008. Hunger, in turn, fell from 34 per cent in 1990 to 9 per cent in 2004. 

Mr. da Silva, who rose to the nation’s top public office despite being born into a poor family, had announced his intention to make fighting hunger and poverty a top priority of his government even before assuming office as President in 2003. 

In choosing him as a co-laureate for the award, the WFP noted that Mr. da Silva had ensured that more than ten government ministries were focused on the expansive Zero Hunger programmes, “which provided greater access to food, strengthened family farms and rural incomes, increased enrolment of primary school children, and empowered the poor”. Zero Hunger very quickly became one of the most successful food and nutritional security policies in the world, the WFP Foundation added. 

Similar to the policies of Mr. Kufuor, Mr. da Silva’s approach showed the dramatic transformation that highest-level political commitments could bring about. During his time in office, the Millennium Development Goal on hunger eradication was exceeded as Brazil cut in half proportion of its people who were in hunger.

The WFP said that with 93 per cent of children and 82 per cent of adults eating three meals a day, the unprecedented improvements in the hunger situation had occurred in tandem with the a sharp drop in the percentage of Brazilians living in extreme poverty, from 12 per cent in 2003 to 4.8 per cent in 2009. 

Poor bear the brunt of food shortage

Speaking to The Hindu after the awards announcement, Professor Swaminathan commented on how the experiences in Brazil and Ghana compared to the situation in India, where the past few years have witnessed sharp fluctuations in food prices, and the poor have continued to feel the brunt of food shortages despite government silos being well-stocked. 

Arguing that in India, rampant under-nutrition and malnutrition showed that more income for farmers was required. He said, “Agriculture will have to be revitalised in terms of getting more per drop of water or per unit of land — in other words, this can only be achieved by technological [upgrades] and more attention to land- and resource-use planning.” 

Professor Swaminathan added that more than 60 per cent of India’s population depended on agriculture for its livelihood. He said, “In India, agriculture is not just a food-producing machine. It is the backbone of the livelihood security system of a majority of people.” There was also a growing tendency of the next generation of farmers abandoning farming as an occupation, he cautioned, noting that a lack of farmer interest in agriculture would make it difficult to have a second Green Revolution. He added that the absence of agricultural insurance would exacerbate such adverse conditions that farmers faced. 

In this context, Professor Swaminathan had, as Chairman of the Selection Committee for the World Food Prize, hoped to underscore the significant difference that public policy could make when it helped farmers effectively obtain and adopt the best technologies. 

Mr. da Silva and Mr. Kufuor will be formally awarded the WFP in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 13, in conjunction with the Borlaug Dialogue international symposium, themed “The Next Generation: Confronting the Hunger Challenges of Tomorrow.”

A Biography on Anna Hazare's Life

Khemkaran, September 1965. An Indian military convoy rumbles towards the fighting zone. Suddenly, two Pakistani Sabre jets drop out of the sky and scream in to attack. As bombs begin exploding around him, Kishan Baburao Hazare, driving a truck full of soldiers, speeds up. But when a splinter grazes his forehead, he ducks below the dashboard and jams on the brakes with his hands. The windscreen shatters and bullets riddle the man sitting next to Hazare. The 25-year-old driver tumbles out of his truck and prays fervently as the two Sabres strafe the convoy again. When they finally disappear, dozens of jawans lie dead. Of the few survivors, only Hazare escapes serious injury. “You saved me, God,” Hazare says, over and over again. “But why?”


At the village of Ralegaon Siddhi, I discovered why God saved Baburao Hazare. In the 1970s, Ralegaon Siddhi wasn’t very different from hundreds of other villages in this arid part of Maharashtra’s Ahmadnagar district. With water available only during the monsoons, its farmers could barely grow one crop a year, and 70 percent of the village’s 315 families lived in abject poverty. Indeed, Ralegaon Siddhi’s most distinctive feature was its 40 illicit distilleries that made the village a popular haunt for drunks and gamblers. Thefts and brawls were commonplace.
Since he returned to Ralegaon Siddhi in 1975, Hazare has spearheaded a movement that has changed all this for ever. Today, Ralegaon Siddhi is brisk and prosperous. Signs of rural modernity abound. Its fields are heavy with grain; there’s a bank, a boarding school, biogas plants; some of its farmers drive around on mopeds. Even more remarkable is the social transformation that Hazare has wrought. No one drinks in Ralegaon Siddhi. Only a handful smoke. There hasn’t been a crime here in years. Even the practice of untouchability has weakened. “Thanks to Hazare,” said the former Collector of Ahmadnagar, Rajiv Agarwal, “scores of other villages here and in neighbouring districts look to Ralegaon for inspiration.”


It’s hard to believe that Hazare could be responsible for all this. He’s a short, thin, mild-looking fellow; the kind of person you wouldn’t look at twice. Nor is his background the stuff from which leaders are supposed to be made. The son of a poor farmer, Hazare never got beyond the seventh class in school. As a young man his fiery temper constantly got him into trouble: once he had the Bombay police after him when he beat up a cop who had been harassing hawkers.


He was known as a troublemaker in the army too. Soon after he enlisted, he discovered that a senior officer was embezzling mess funds. He publicly questioned the officer—and was posted to far-off NEFA as a punishment.
The story of Hazare’s transformation began in 1964 at a Delhi railway station bookstall after he bought a book on Swami Vivekananda.


Enthralled by the great sage’s life and by his dictum that the noblest thing a man can do is work for the good of others, Hazare avidly began reading religious texts and biographies of social reformers. And after his escape from the Sabre jets at Khemkaran, Hazare became a vegetarian, gave up cigarettes and liquor, and vowed to remain a bachelor devoting himself to public service.


A worthy cause, he realized, lay right in front of him: The upliftment of his own village, Ralegaon Siddhi. During his annual visits home, Hazare had been appalled by its steady deterioration—even the village temple had become badly run down. “If I could re-build the temple,” Hazare said to himself, “more people might think of God and lead better lives.” But he didn’t have the money; nor could he leave the army just yet—to qualify for a pension he had to serve for several years more.


Finally, in August 1975, Hazare returned to Ralegaon after retiring from the army. His service benefits amounted to Rs20,000 and he planned to spend the money rebuilding the village temple. He hired carpenters and masons, and helped them lay bricks and lug wood.......................................


Click here to read more