{"database": "openregs", "table": "congressional_record", "rows": [["CREC-1998-12-17-pt1-PgE2337-3", "1998-12-17", 105, 2, null, null, "GLOBAL HUNGER AND UNITED NATIONS FOOD AND AGRICULTURE PROGRAM", "HOUSE", "EXTENSIONS", "ALLOTHER", "E2337", "E2338", "[{\"name\": \"Lee H. Hamilton\", \"role\": \"speaking\"}]", null, "144 Cong. Rec. E2337", "Congressional Record, Volume 144 Issue 153 (Thursday, December 17, 1998)\n\n[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 153 (Thursday, December 17, 1998)]\n[Extensions of Remarks]\n[Pages E2337-E2338]\nFrom the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]\n\n     GLOBAL HUNGER AND UNITED NATIONS FOOD AND AGRICULTURE PROGRAM\n\n                                 ______\n\n                          HON. LEE H. HAMILTON\n\n                               of indiana\n\n                    in the house of representatives\n\n                      Thursday, December 17, 1998\n\n  Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of our\ncolleagues an editorial from former Senator, now Ambassador, George\nMcGovern, concerning global hunger and United Nations Food and\nAgriculture Program.\n  George McGovern has distinguished himself through a life-long\ncommitment of service to the United States and to addressing world\nhunger. As he recounts in this article, it was his experience in the\nU.S. Armed Forces in Europe during World War II which first made him\naware of the devastating impact of starvation on a population.\nThereafter, he devoted much of his effort in the U.S. Senate to\nprograms designed to alleviate famine. Today he is serving his country\nonce more as Ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture\nProgram. And now he is clarifying for us many of the challenges faced\nby the United Nations in these efforts, and the benefits which they\nhave brought to hundreds of millions of people around the world.\n  As Ambassador McGovern notes, foreign assistance programs which help\nthe hungry and promote economic development serve the interests of both\nof the recipient countries and the United States. However, our\nleadership in this capacity is threatened today by our delinquency in\npaying our dues to the United Nations. United States contributions to\nhunger-related organizations are very positive, effective, and should\nremain a priority of our engagement with the world.\n\n              [From the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 23, 1998]\n\n                   Too Many in the World Are Left Out\n\n                          (By George McGovern)\n\n       In the fall of 1944, as a 22-year-old American bomber pilot\n     based in war-torn Italy, I saw widespread hunger for the\n     first time: emaciated children begging for food on the\n     streets, teenage girls selling their bodies to stay alive,\n     young mothers scratching through the garbage dumps near our\n     bomber base to find scraps of food. This was even worse that\n     the hunger I witnessed during the years of the Great\n     Depression in the 1930s, when our family, who lived in a farm\n     community in South Dakota, fed a steady stream of out-of-work\n     ``hobos'' who came to our door.\n       Not surprisingly, hunger became a primary issue for me when\n     I was elected to Congress in 1956. I became director of the\n     U.S. Food for Peace program and later was President Kennedy's\n     designee on what came to be known as the World Food Program--\n     the world's largest international food aid organization. Last\n     year, the program provided food assistance for more than 52\n     million people in 76 countries. Through these programs I saw\n     how much can be done when nations come together to combat\n     hunger. In the past 25 years, for example, despite a doubling\n     of the world's population, the percentage of chronically\n     undernourished people in the world has been cut in half and\n     the absolute number of chronically undernourished people has\n     been reduced by more than 100 million.\n       We can take heart from these and other similar steps\n     forward, but this does not mean the job is done. This winter,\n     Russia will be facing acute food shortages caused by poor\n     crop conditions and the collapse of the Russian economy.\n     Millions of Russians will go over the edge of starvation in\n     the absence of international food aid now. Indonesia,\n     hurricane-struck Central America and large parts of Africa\n     currently are sustained by international food donations.\n       The fact is that many of our fellow human beings are left\n     out, living on the knife-edge of existence. As world Bank\n     President James Wolfensohn reminded us. ``In too many\n     countries, the poorest 10% of the population has less than 1%\n     of the income, while the richest 20% enjoys over half.''\n       In too many countries, girls are half as likely as boys to\n     go to school. In too many countries, children are impaired\n     from birth because of malnutrition. And in too many\n     countries, ethnic minorities face discrimination and fear for\n     their lives at the hands of ethnic majorities.\n\n[[Page E2338]]\n\n       In this world of plenty, of marvelous scientific advances,\n     of growing freedoms, we cannot ignore the tragedy of millions\n     who are excluded from the blessings we enjoy. There is a\n     moral imperative to be concerned and to act. It is simply\n     wrong for a child anywhere in the world to suffer the\n     crippling effects of malnutrition. It is wrong--even\n     outrageous--that more than 800 million people, 14% of the\n     human race, are malnourished, many near starvation. It is\n     wrong to accept as ``unavoidable'' the millions of hungry\n     people we read about or see on TV. It is wrong to let\n     politics and ideology interfere with helping the hungry,\n     especially children. When criticized for helping the\n     communist government of North Korea establish child-feeding\n     programs in that drought-stricken country, Catherine Bertini,\n     who is head of the World Food Program replied. ``I can't tell\n     a hungry 5-year-old boy that we can't feed him because we\n     don't like the politics of his country.''\n       But beyond that, it is in our self-interest to end hunger.\n     After all, we live in one world. Rich and poor alike, we\n     breathe the same air; we share a global economy. Killers like\n     AIDS and environmental calamities and other threats to health\n     don't stop at national borders. The chaos associated with\n     political instability rooted in poverty and desperation is\n     rarely contained within a single country.\n       Earlier this year, when President Clinton asked me to be\n     the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations food and\n     agriculture agencies in Rome, I readily accepted because\n     of my lifelong interest in agricultural matters and in\n     solving the problem of hunger. At the agency, I work with\n     such organizations as the Food and Agriculture\n     Organization, which is headed by Senegalese agricultural\n     authority Jacques Diouf; the World Food Program, directed\n     by Bertini, an American, and the International Fund for\n     Agriculture Development, under the direction of Fawzi al\n     Sultan, a Kuwaiti banker. Our common purpose, articulated\n     at the World Food Summit hosted by the Food and\n     Agriculture Organization in November 1996, is to reduce\n     hunger by promoting an adequate supply and distribution of\n     food in the world.\n       This plan, endorsed by all 186 nations represented at the\n     summit, has the practical and achievable goal of reducing by\n     half the number of hungry people in the world by 2015.\n     Consider these facts:\n       Over the past 50 years, infant and child death rates in the\n     developing world have been reduced by 50% and health\n     conditions around the world have improved more during this\n     period than in all previous human history.\n       In the past three decades, agricultural production\n     techniques, developed through the internationally supported\n     system of research centers, enabled a ``green revolution'' in\n     many countries. Improved seed and associated break-throughs\n     in agricultural practices resulted in the most dramatic\n     increase in crop yields in the history of mankind, allowing\n     nations like India and Bangladesh, which in the early 1960s\n     and mid-1970s, respectively, were kept alive through outside\n     food assistance, to become nearly food self-sufficient.\n       The United States played a leading role in alleviating\n     hunger, especially in the period immediately following World\n     War II, by encouraging the international community to set in\n     place the institutions and methods to address the issue. As\n     prosperity spread across Europe and other parts of the world,\n     more nations have shared in the task of solving the problems\n     of food insecurity.\n       The Food and Agriculture Organization is providing\n     technical assistance in a variety of ways: establishing\n     productivity-enhancing technology such as user-managed, small\n     scale irrigation schemes; eradicating and controlling pests\n     like desert locust that threaten food security for millions\n     of people living in a swath extending from the Red Sea to\n     West Africa; monitoring crop conditions around the world to\n     provide early warning of food supply difficulties and\n     disasters; and conserving scarce food resources such as\n     fisheries and biodiversity to protect future food security.\n       The World Food Program that is meeting emergency food needs\n     in Rwanda, North Korea, Sudan and the Horn of Africa has\n     saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Also, the program often\n     plays a development role in nonemergency situations\n     characterized by chronic hunger and malnutrition, using\n     ``food for work'' to enable thousands of communities to build\n     schools, improve community water systems and expand other\n     basic infrastructure. And the International Fund for\n     Agricultural Development, established only 20 years ago,\n     provides development loans for addressing the basic needs of\n     small farmers and poor rural communities. The agency was the\n     first to provide funds to the now spectacularly successful\n     Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which created a model for\n     channeling microcredit to the very poor. The agency is\n     currently supporting similar grass-roots microcredit models\n     in West Africa.\n       Obviously, progress in ending world hunger can be greatly\n     advanced by progress in other related problem areas,\n     including better family planning to restrain excessive\n     population growth. There must also be continuing efforts to\n     halt the bloody and disruptive political and military\n     conflicts in developing countries that drive multitudes of\n     people from their homes, fields and jobs.\n       Reaching the goal adopted at the World Food Summit, to\n     reduce the number of undernourished people by one-half in the\n     next 17 years, is beyond the capacity of any single country\n     or organization. It will require the effort of many\n     international organizations and national governments and the\n     help of private voluntary organizations, such as CARE, Church\n     World Service, Lutheran World Relief, Catholic Relief\n     Services and the United Jewish Appeal.\n       The target beneficiaries themselves have a key role to\n     play, because reducing hunger and achieving security is much\n     more than simply distributing food aid. It's about developing\n     concerned and capable government leadership responsive to\n     citizens. It's about having sound economic policies and\n     educating people. It's about reducing disease and improving\n     public health. It's about improving cultivation practices and\n     making production tools, including rural credit, available.\n     It's about conserving forests, fisheries, genetic resources\n     and biodiversity. It's about establishing effective markets.\n     And it's about having essential infrastructure including\n     farm-to-market roads.\n       These difficult but achievable soil motivate the U.N. food\n     and agricultural agencies in Rome as they assist communities\n     and nations to eliminate hunger and to establish the basis\n     for sustained productivity. This work requires technical\n     knowledge, cultural sensitivity, organizational development\n     skills, a realistic appreciation for market incentives and a\n     good measure of altruistic motivation.\n       During a recent trip to Egypt, I visited a rural community\n     in the desert between Cairo and Alexandria. Here, the\n     government has settled about 15,000 families on so-called\n     ``new lands.'' To prepare these lands for production with\n     water diverted from the Nile River, the settler families\n     undertake the task of desalinating the soil, a repeated\n     process of tilling, flooding and draining that typically\n     takes more than three years. In addition, an array of basic\n     village facilities and irrigation infrastructure has to be\n     built. The work required of the settlers is backbreaking. But\n     also needed are support, guidance and money, requirements\n     being fulfilled by a collaborative effort of the\n     International Fund for Agricultural Development, which is\n     financing the nonlabor cost of the on-farm infrastructure;\n     the World Food Program, which is supplementing the family\n     diets until the fields come into production, and the Food and\n     Agriculture Organization, which helps monitor and guide the\n     technical aspects involved in getting the land fit for\n     production.\n       This is the kind of investment activity that leads to\n     sustained food security. This is the kind of activity that\n     Americans and citizens in other donor countries support.\n       I am proud of the tradition of the people of the United\n     States to give a helping hand to the hungry and to those in\n     need. I am proud of the record of foreign assistance that the\n     United States has provided to nations to undertake essential\n     economic development initiatives; it has paid dividends to\n     both the recipient countries and to us. Likewise, I am proud\n     of the pivotal role that the United States has played in\n     making the system of United Nations agencies strong and\n     effective. It saddens me that the United States is today\n     delinquent in paying what it owes to the U.N., including to\n     the Food and Agriculture Organization, the family of\n     multilateral organizations that plays such a key role in\n     eliminating hunger.\n       There are no easy solutions to the problems of poverty and\n     underdevelopment in our world. However, eliminating hunger is\n     the place to start and should be our priority. The need is\n     evident. The methods are known. The means can be made\n     available.\n\n                          ____________________"]], "columns": ["granule_id", "date", "congress", "session", "volume", "issue", "title", "chamber", "granule_class", "sub_granule_class", "page_start", "page_end", "speakers", "bills", "citation", "full_text"], "primary_keys": ["granule_id"], "primary_key_values": ["CREC-1998-12-17-pt1-PgE2337-3"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1111.6988669964485, "source": "Federal Register API & Regulations.gov API", "source_url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/developers/api/v1", "license": "Public Domain (U.S. Government data)", "license_url": "https://www.regulations.gov/faq"}