Recently, Arif Husain, the chief economist of the United Nations World Food Program reported that much of the Gaza Strip's population of 2.2 million people is in a food-security crisis. "I have been doing this for the past two decades, and I have been to all kinds of conflicts and all kinds of crises. In my life, I have never seen anything like this in terms of severity, in terms of scale and then in terms of speed.This is why people keep talking about having a humanitarian ceasefire which would allow us not only to bring in food and other essential commodities but also to actually distribute them in a safe way."
The Association of World Citizens has stressed the dangers of a food crisis in the Gaza Strip if there is not a humanitarian ceasefire and the start of negotiations in good faith. World Citizens have long been concerned with food security. A central theme which citizens of the world have highlighted is that there needs to be a world food policy and that a world food policy is more than the sum of national food security programs. While the adoption of a national strategy to ensure food and nutrition security for all is essential, a focus on the formulation of national plans is clearly inadequate.
Fortunately, there is a growing awareness that an integrated, holistic approach is needed. World Citizens stress that solutions to poverty, hunger, and climate change require an agriculture that promotes producers' livelihood, knowledge, resiliency, health, and equitable gender relations. Such an integrated approach is a fundamental aspect of the world citizen approach to a coherent world food policy.
The food crisis in the Gaza Strip requires both governmental and non-governmental organization attention and action. As Stringfellow Barr wrote in his book Citizens of the World (Garden City, NY; Doubleday, 1952) "Since the hungry billion in the world community believe that we can all eat if we set our common house in order, they believe also that it is unjust that some men die because it is too much trouble to arrange for them to live."
René Wadlow, Association of World Citizens
#The_UN_Goals #endhunger #together
