Food Insecurity: The Democratic Republic of Congo In the middle of Africa is a nation rich with natural resources yet deals with a crisis that threatens its people's survival - food insecurity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Despite its large agricultural potential, the Democratic Republic of the Congo deals with complex issues that contribute to the hunger and malnutrition of its people. There are many causes of food insecurity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including political instability, economic barriers, and environmental factors, which all have solutions to help take control of this issue and improve the lives of its people. Conflicts and severe poverty have caused the Democratic Republic of Congo to have an unstable …show more content…
The Democratic Republic of Congo is and was involved in many conflicts such as wars with nearby countries, which may have been a result or cause of food insecurity (Lawal). The most influential cause of food insecurity in the Democratic Republic of Congo is conflict with surrounding countries, including the effects of colonization. The first and most important cause of food insecurity in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the colonization of the country by Belgium which caused forced labor, genocide, and a spread of diseases. The continuous problems caused by colonization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have shown how many leaders of the country at the time and even now have prioritized their wealth over the wellbeing of their citizens (Nantulya). The Democratic Republic of the Congo being colonized for so long also still impacts the country today as the country's well being has been done for so long and getting back to a good state will take a long time (Lawal). Another cause of food insecurity in the Democratic Republic of Congo is conflict with surrounding countries as the country has been in multiple wars with countries such as France, Zaire, and
What causes hunger to exist in Ethiopia? and What effect does it have on the people of Ethiopia? are two big questions regarding the people of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the 8th hungriest country in the world currently. There are many factors contributing to the starvation of the Ethiopian people. Hunger in Ethiopia is mainly caused because of famine; this affects the people greatly in their health but can still be prevented.
There are many causes to hunger in Africa and other developing countries some include; weather conditions, poor agriculture, limited resources, natural disasters, and economy. (Robbins, 2012). The hungry people are not censurable. Hunger isn’t just the issue, the gist of the issue in its self, is economy. Close to one billion people live in deep penury, in the world today. (Robbins, 2012). If you don’t have money then you don’t have food, it is as simple as that. Poverty, food prices, and hunger are inextricably linked (Anderson, 2007). So the real question is; how can poverty be solved to stop hunger? One sixth of the world does not have enough food to be healthy and active. (Robbins, 2002). It takes 30 billion dollars to feed the hungry for a year. (Boren Project, 2013). If every person in the United States gave ten cents, world hunger could be stopped for a whole year. (Boren Project, 2013 and USC, 2014). Eve...
Congo is at a really high risk of genocide. Even though the wars were from 1996 to 2003, Congo still continues to have many conflicts now. There are so many things that happen and are happenin...
We now live in a world where 20% of the population uses 80% of the world’s resources. Roughly a billion people live on a dollar a day or less, and approximately 16,000 children die daily from malnutrition. The people of the world’s poorest region, a sub-region of Sahara Africa, spend twenty five thousand dollars every minute paying their massive debt to the rich countries of the north. These markers of extreme poverty have gotten worse since the 1980’s; despite the rapid technological and agricultural strides of progress of the developed world, the margin of the population suffering from chronic malnutrition has doubled in the last forty years.
... attention allowed economic exploitation in the Congo and its people devastated by human rights abuses, and even today the lack of international attention has caused many conflicts in and around the Congo. The economic exploitation of the Congo during colonial times robbed the country of wealth which could have been used to develop the land, and the lack of wealth has contributed to Congo’s poor standing in the world today. Lastly, the human rights abuses in the Congo Free State contributed to economic and political troubles during the colonial period and has continued into the present day, as human rights abuses are still prevalent in that region of Africa. Due to the lack of international attention, economic exploitation, and human rights abuses, the Congo Free State was harmful to the Congo region of Africa and its legacy continues to harm that region of Africa.
Food insecurity refers to the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of adequate, nutritious food. A direct correlation has been distinguished between food, income and overall health (Noreen et al. 2001). Food insecurity has been strongly influenced by financial constraints, resulting in individuals choosing to manage their food expenditures and dietary choices based off of what they can afford (McIntyre et al. 2016). Additionally, food insecurity leads to the altering of eating patterns for adults and ultimately hunger in children; due to depletion of resources and food supplies. Households experiencing food insecurity are commonly lacking sufficient funds for food and acquire several health problems as a consequence. Food insecurity was significantly associated with poor health, multiple chronic conditions, obesity, anxiety, distress and depression (Noreen et al. 2001). Therefore, this is an issue of importance to public
According to a few world hunger organizations, the five main causes of hunger in the third world are natural disasters, war, the poverty trap, agricultural infrastructure and over-exploitation of resources. Natural disasters such as droughts, floods and storms cause crops to be destroyed or peop...
World Food Programme. (2013). Comprehensive food security and vulnerability analysis (CFSVA): Uganda. Retrieved from http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/ena/wfp256989.pdf
In 1960, the Congolese finally became independent. They were no longer under Belgian rule. They finally got control over their own government, education, and resources. However, they did not have any political structure. They did not have agreeing institutions. They did not want to work together which led to a lot of civil war. The villages in the Congo are divided and don’t agree which leads to these wars. It is all because of the Belgian’s who ruled before. Many belgian’s still have high roles in the government and military of the Congo.
Food is treated as such a commodity that currently more people die from hunger than AIDs, malaria, and tuberculosis combined (UN). The current number of chronically undernourished people in the world is 842 million. The Food and Agricultural Organization defines chronically undernourished or chronic hunger as “a state lasting for at least one year, of inability to acquire enough food, defined as a level of food intake insufficient to meet dietary energy requirements.” For the purposes of this report, hunger was defined as being synonymous with chronically undernourished. In this report I will discuss the global food crisis from a human security perspective. I will begin by discussing hunger before the global food crisis and further my discussion in the causes of the global food crisis, how states have responded to the food crisis, and what are the best solutions for this crisis from a human security perspective.
Congo's Civil War began on November 2nd, 1998 when Laurent Kabila tried to drive out Rwandan militants who helped him overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko.2 Sese Seko came into power in 1966 when he led a rebellion to overthrow the government of Patrice Lumumbra. Sese Seko led to Africanizing of the country by requiring that all citizens drop their Christan names, and by renaming all the geographical locations with more African names.3 During the 1980's Sese Seko's government received support from the United States, in response to communism's rising popularity in Africa. Because of the misuse of the funds and wealth generated by natural resources, the rich got richer and the poor fell farther into poverty. Sese Seko abused Congo's natural resources and eventually helped lead the country into a state of economic ruin. In 1997 Sese Seko was overthrown by Laurent Kabila. When Kabila took over the country it was in terrible condition but he did nothing to try and improve the state of the nation. When he tried to expel the same Rwandan rebels that helped him come to power, he started a war that eventually led to his death. Many various ethnic and rebel groups inside of Congo who relied on the Rwandans for protection joined the uprising.4 Africans inside and around Congo chose s...
The Congo is an African country ruined by European imperialism. It was taken over by King Leopold II of Belgium in 1885. In 1908 the Congo would become known as the Belgian Congo. During Leopold’s rule in the Congo, he was accused of enslaving the Congolese and killing 10 million of them through forced labor, starvation and outright extermination. Belgium’s rule of the Congo caused other European countries to “race” for power in African colonies; this was called the “Scramble for Africa”.
Famine has struck parts of Africa several times during the 20th century, and to this day is still going strong. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, the average African consumes 2300 kcal/day, less than the global average of 2700 kcal/day. Recent figures estimate that 316 million Africans, or approximately 35 percent of the continent's total population, is undernourished. Although hunger in Africa is hardly new, it now occurs in a world that has more than enough food to feed all its citizens. Moreover, while Africa's population is growing rapidly, it still has ample fertile land for growing food. Hunger therefore reflects not absolute food scarcity but rather people's lack of access to resources—whether at the individual, house-hold, comunity, or national leve that are needed to produce or purchase adequate food supplies. The reasons people cannot obtain enough food are: several different historical patterns of in equality. These patterns include the in equalities between Africa and its former colonisers or contemporary financiers, and between Africa's rich and poor. It also includes in equality between members of the same households, where food and the resources needed to obtain it (such as land and income) are often unevenly distributed between men and women, old and young. Whatever the reasons for food deprivation, when the result is malnutrition it can do damage, increasing diseases such as malaria, rickets, anemia, and perhaps acquired immune deficiency syndrome aka AIDS Mal-nourished children suffer stunted growth and, often, learning problems. Malnourished adults have less energy to work. Over the long term, inadequate nourishment can cast communities into a cycle o...
Food insecurity and poor nutrition is an alarmingly large problem for low income families, especially in developing countries. Many strategies exist to fight this problem, although not many of these address all the factors contributing to it along with all the possible solutions to solve it. In many cases, multiple strategies must correlate and work together so that all the determinants of this issue are addressed and can fight food insecurity from different angles. This essay will discuss the significance of the problem, a range of possible strategies to solve the problem, and go into detail on a select few that will correlate and work together to solve different factors of food insecurity and poor nutrition.
Over one billion people are living in poverty, lacking safe water, housing, food, and the ability to read. There is a high concentration of communities in poverty in Africa; particularly Central Africa. States that are considered in Central Africa are the following: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Republic of Africa, Chad, Equatorial Guinea and the Congo. The majority of these Central African states’ economies are dependent on agriculture. As a result of this dependency, natural disasters, droughts and wars can displace subsistence farmer from their land resulting in poverty becoming even more prevalent and harder to come back from. Also with a history of dependency on farming there tends to be the trend of education not being a primary focus for the youth which is another factor into the stagnant poverty trend in Central Africa.