Hunger
Blog Post: Posted August 20, 2010, 12:45 pm by Lila Wade
Demystifying our work in North Korea
Country: North Korea
In North Korea, Mercy Corps programmes focus on alleviating hunger by expanding agricultural production. We also invite North Korean officials to the U.S. as part of building a humanitarian bridge between our country and theirs.
I recently talked about our work in North Korea (also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) including what it's like to host North Korean officials here in the U.S. with David Austin, a programme officer responsible for managing Mercy Corps programmes in North Korea.
Q: First, can you give us a little history? When and how did Mercy Corps begin working in North Korea?
David Austin: Well, Mercy Corps has had programmes in the DPRK for about 15 years. Our work began in 1996 when a North Korean diplomat to the UN began reaching out to aid agencies requesting help with agricultural production as there was a famine occurring in the country. One of the calls he made was to the late Ells Culver, who co-founded Mercy Corps. His response: "Sure! Let’s get started."
Q: What kind of programmes do we have there?
A large portion of our work remains centered on agriculture — improving growing techniques and encouraging the bio-diversity of crops. In 2000, Mercy Corps supplied 35,000 apple cuttings to orchards in Qwail County to boost production, which began an ongoing project revolving around apple production.
Since that first shipment, we have sent an additional 200,000 apple rootstock which have been propogated into more than 900,000 apple trees. Our hope for the future is that Mercy Corps can help communities begin making value-added products like applesauce, apple cider or dried fruit bars.
We have also helped on smaller crop projects on an annual basis, such as grass seed, potatoes, poplar trees and fish farms.
When there have been extraordinary circumstances, Mercy Corps has helped in times of crisis, such as providing medicines during the floods of 2007, food crises in 2008-2009 and, most recently, Mercy Corps was part of a USAID-funded initiative to bring medical supplies and electricity to hospitals in North Korea.
Q: What did this hospital initiative entail?
Mercy Corps purchased and installed five generators in five different hospitals in South Hwangae provinces with the help of volunteer electricians from here in Oregon. We then returned to monitor how the new generators were put to use and to assess the hospitals’ material needs. Finding the hospitals short on many basic supplies, Mercy Corps arranged for the delivery of several ultrasound machines, X-ray units, power conditioners and other needed supplies, such as operating beds and operating lights. I was able to visit the hospitals myself right after these supplies were delivered along with Nancy Lindborg, Mercy Corps' president.
Q: But there's a diplomatic element to our programmes as well, right?
Yes, you might say that we deliver more than just direct assistance. Through our aid work, Mercy Corps plays a unique role as a relational bridge between people in the United States and people in the DPRK. The nature of our work helps create these relationships, because it creates common ground. For instance, most of our work centers on agriculture. Agriculture is a science, which is, by nature, apolitical. Cooperation on these non-controversial fronts creates a space for engagement that will one day, we hope, open a window for the political opportunity.
Q: Tell me more about what you mean by a "relational bridge."
The relationship that Mercy Corps has built has been an incredible asset. By building trust, we have been provided with opportunities to take leadership in times of crisis, such as the famine in 1997 and most recently in 2008 and 2009. Normally, aid organisations don’t operate in the country, but because of our relationship with officials there, Mercy Corps and a few other non-governmental organisation (NGOs) were given unprecedented access. We were able to feed 890,000 people for eight months and crisscross the country visiting with the people who received the aid. We had open access to the areas we served, and in many cases we were
the first encounter North Koreans ever had with an American.
Q: But constructing a bridge to such an insular country can't be easy.
That's true. Few North Koreans are permitted to leave the country, but we have had the unique opportunity of inviting members of the Korean American Private Exchange Society, part of the government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to visit the U.S. These visits have been enriching experiences. They have given us the privilege of facilitating dialogue between state and local officials. Through these trips, we are able to extend the hospitality of our organisation, present new ideas about our vision for the future and show that there are many similarities between our country and theirs.
Q: What do North Korean officials do when they visit?
They visit our city, meet civic, political, business and academic leaders whose work or interests might inspire or assist the North Koreans. Over the course of their visit, we may take them to visit the World Forestry Centre, Oregon State University, and a national forest, the kinds of places where they can meet with experts on deforestation and agricultural productivity — two issues that the DPRK must address to reduce poverty.
We aim to build relationships and to facilitate the exchange of information. Our hope is that when these officials leave they will have experienced a deeper connection to our organisation, our donors, our city and the vision we have. Hopefully, this helps them understand the many opportunities there are to expand our work into new areas in their country through a deeper partnership.
Q: What's the hoped-for result of these partnerships?
Our hope is that the years and resources we spend in North Korea will relieve suffering today, and lay the groundwork for deeper relationships in the future. It makes a difference that we are a U.S.-based organisation because we invariably represent our country when we are there. Although we are not on a political mission, we are seen as Americans. Thus, our programmes and history in the country serve as a reminder of what is good in our country.
I have heard many survivors of World War II break down in tears of gratitude for the food and aid they received from the United States after the war was over. By providing aid in North Korea, who knows what kind of friends we’re creating for the future? But I'm sure that these relationships will be of lasting value.
Posted July 23, 2010 by Roger Burks
Responding to Niger’s latest hunger crisis
Country: Niger
Topics: Agriculture, Hunger
Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps
Five years ago, Mercy Corps responded to a catastrophic food crisis in Niger that put more than 3.5 million people at risk of malnutrition and starvation. Today, Niger is facing potentially worse food shortages — and Mercy Corps is again readying a lifesaving response.
This year, as many as 7.8 million people — more than half of Niger’s total population — face the grim prospect of months without sufficient food. Sporadic rains during the last growing season have had a devastating effect on harvests and food supplies, leaving households with little to save for the long “hungry season” between harvests. There are already widespread reports of families — particularly women and children — skipping meals and having to forage for semi-edible grasses, leaves and other wild food.
They need help to survive until the fall harvest, and the Government of Niger has requested urgent assistance from the international community.
Mercy Corps — which has worked in some of Niger’s poorest villages since 2005 – has plans to deliver food and other critical assistance to more than 211,000 people threatened by the hunger crisis. Through government grants, private support and partnerships with local organizations, we will supply nutritious food to vulnerable households while helping farmers address issues of debt from previous poor harvests. Through a microfinance partner, we will extend credit to farming families in order to help them get back on their feet and better able to support themselves.
Every cycle of hunger in Niger drives already-struggling families deeper into poverty. This year, we’re determined to not only help them feed themselves, but also strengthen their ability to emerge from crisis.
Over the last five years, our work in Niger has helped save and change lives: we’ve ensured therapeutic food for more than 60,000 malnourished children and mothers. Our team has also helped improve maternal and child health by working with local authorities to build community health networks that have reached at least 370,000 people in 547 villages.
This year, hunger threatens Nigerien families once again. We are prepared to respond, and your support will help us save lives in one of the world’s poorest places.
Posted July 15, 2010 by Jarrod Fath
Global Agriculture Results for 2009
In 2009, 87 projects in 25 countries contributed to Mercy Corps' Agricultural Development Goal of working with “farmers, agribusinesses and government to decrease hunger, increase incomes and improve environmental sustainability.” Agricultural development programming was used to respond to a number of global challenges — including the recent global food crisis, chronic food insecurity and poverty, resettlement of conflict- and natural disaster-affected populations, and increasing social inclusion.
Mercy Corps works directly with small holder farmers and pastoralists, as well as input suppliers, animal health workers, financial service providers, government extension agents, marketing centers and trade associations to:
Click to magnify
- Improve the performance of high impact agricultural value chains;
- Increase access to financial services; and
- Improve the enabling environment via better business and government services.
Please find, at right, a chart that illustrates the reach and impact of Mercy Corps' agricultural programmes in calendar year 2009.
Blog Post: Posted April 17, 2010, 8:04 am by Jeremy Konyndyk
How did Mercy Corps turn rain from foe back to friend in Ethiopia?
Country: Ethiopia
A water-retention terrace. Photo: Jeremy Konyndyk/Mercy Corps
Ethiopia has long struggled with food insecurity. With generous support from USAID, Mercy Corps has just completed the first year of a three-year effort to improve food security in some of Ethiopia’s most vulnerable regions.
Recently I made a trip to Jijiga, in the east of Ethiopia, to see how Mercy Corps is working with community members and the local government to address the causes — rather than just the effects — of hunger.
Our consultations with community members revealed that environmental factors can have a major impact on people’s access to food. Ironically, we learned that rains can be a hindrance as much as a help.
I visited a shallow valley outside Jijiga, where the fertile farmland in the bottom of the valley is threatened every time there is a heavy rain. Seasonal rains have carved ferocious gullies, up to a kilometre in length, into the surrounding hillside. The rain runoff spills into these gullies rather than soaking into the hillsides.
It then carries on into the valley below at great speed, taking with it pebbles and other detritus from the hills. By the time the gullies reach the bottom of the valley, the force of the water often wipes out the crops planted there and deposits detritus in their place. This situation is disastrous not only for the farmers in the valley but also for the herders in the hills above. The swift removal of the water from the hillsides prevents plant growth, making it difficult for them to graze their animals.
A water-break dam in a gully. Photo: Jeremy Konyndyk/Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps turned to a technique that has been applied in Ethiopia’s central highlands. Using labour from the local community — including nearly 100 women — we financed the construction of a series of small dams and retention walls to break up gullies and keep more water in the hills. The retention walls are simple stone terraces, about a foot high, built in a wide U-shape (like a smile) and backed with native aloe plants to anchor them into place. These are positioned in numerous spots along the hill side. Once in place, they prevent runoff from rushing down the slope. Instead, they hold moisture back on a patch of hillside, where it can soak into the ground and foster the growth of plants for grazing.
We complemented these terrace walls with small dam structures that are placed in the path of the gullies. These dams, made of local rocks and standing 2-3 feet tall, are simple structures but do a great deal to break up and slow down the flow of water as it proceeds down the hill. By the time the water reaches the valley floor, the dams have slowed it down enough that it gently nourishes the crops rather than washing them away.
And so with this simple intervention, life improves for both farmers and herders, and both groups can reduce their reliance on food aid or other external support.
Blog Post: Posted April 8, 2010, 1:55 pm by Heather Hanson
Make sure they hear from us about hunger
Country: United States
Topics: Hunger
Getting a bunch of advocacy staff from dozens of organisations to all work on the same thing at the same time is a bit like herding cats. That’s what I spent my day doing yesterday.
Working with the Roadmap to End Hunger Steering Committee and InterAction, we brought together a big core group of advocates to discuss how we can work together to make sure that the Congress approves the President’s budget request for the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative.
The budget request is exciting! If approved, the US would spend £1 billion to end global hunger. Because the lion’s share of that money — £1 billion — goes to agriculture programmes, it is mostly focused on supporting programmes to help people help themselves, making it both sustainable and smart.
I know that £1 billion probably sounds like a lot of money, but when you keep in mind that there are roughly a billion people going to bed hungry every night...well, that’s less than $2 per hungry person! And when you compare this to the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — which, according to a July 2009 Congressional Research Service report, were costing the Department of Defence £6 billion per month on average — it’s clear that it’s a pretty small piece of the budget pie.
I’ve written here before about what terrific opportunities we have in coming years to really reduce world hunger. And I still think we have a great chance of reaching millions of hungry people.
But these are hard times in Washington and everyone is looking for places where they can cut spending. We’ve been hearing from more and more Members of Congress that they just can’t justify this kind of funding for international programmes when their constituents are also facing hard times.
So yesterday, dozens of groups came together and did the not-so-exciting work of dividing up into teams and assigning each team a few Members of Congress to meet with. In the next two weeks, we will join our fellow humanitarian, development and advocacy organisations to meet with all the leaders in the House and the Senate that we need to educate and to convince that they should support full funding of the President’s budget request to end global hunger.
Polls show that the vast majority of Americans support efforts to end hunger and poverty. But, because our elected representatives often don’t hear from us on these issues, they continue to neglect them.
This is a critical time to contact your Senators and Representative to let them know this is an issue you care about. It will make a huge difference.
Blog Post: Posted January 27, 2010, 9:03 pm by Roger Burks
Sous les belles étoiles
Country: Haiti
Today, I heard one of the most beautiful and most heartbreaking things of my life. It’s something I’ll always carry with me — and perhaps the one phrase I’ll attach to my time in Haiti.
Rosemarie, who works in the kitchen of Port-au-Prince's main hospital, dishes out rice that will be delivered in a meal for each patient. Photo: Roger Burks/Mercy Corps
I was at Port-au-Prince’s main hospital again, checking on how the food we’d delivered was being cooked and taken to patients. Even before I entered the kitchen, I knew what was on the stove: chicken and sauce. When I went in and talked to the kitchen crew, I also found out that they were making rice and beans — and were just about to do another round of deliveries to the various tents around the hospital grounds. So I followed along.
We wound down the pathways of the sprawling hospital complex, past one fallen building and a couple that have been closed off because of earthquake damage, to a set of tents that are temporary home to injured and recovering children. As volunteers passed out the meals to grateful families, I took time to talk to a few parents.
One of them was 36-year-old Claricia Basaent, mother of two injured children, including 11-year-old Nadine. Nadine sustained internal injuries as their house collapsed around them in the midst of the earthquake, which led to an emergency appendectomy here at the hospital. She’s doing better now, besides some soreness and a big bandage on her stomach, and taking a few small steps each day to gain her footing again.
Today was only the second time since the earthquake that Nadine has had a hot lunch — the first was yesterday, when the hospital kitchen started making meals from Mercy Corps-donated supplies. Before this, she subsisted on whatever was brought in by small organisations and volunteer doctors: mostly crackers and other small sustenance.
Claricia Basaent and her daughter Nadine. Photo: Roger Burks/Mercy Corps
When she leaves the hospital after visiting hours are over, Claricia is still subsisting on whatever she can find, mostly sporadic food distributions from international organisations. She can’t afford to buy food since losing everything when the earthquake took her house.
I asked Claricia where she slept at night. And her smile stunned me almost as much as her answer did.
“Sous les belles étoiles," she said. Under the beautiful stars.
I smiled back, shook her hand and told her we’d keep doing everything we could to help. As I walked away to talk with more families, I kept imagining the place where Claricia drifts off to sleep. Perhaps I’d even been through her neighborhood.
But, mostly, I thought about those beautiful stars and how all of us are beneath them. I don’t think I’ll ever look at the night sky in quite the same way.
Blog Post: Posted January 5, 2010, 1:26 pm by Heather Hanson
What we're doing to help end global hunger
Topics: Hunger, Food/Nutrition
Here in DC we’ve been working with a group of partner organisations for 18 months now to address the problem of world hunger. We’ve worked to get groups in DC behind a common vision that includes a comprehensive plan to orient U.S. government resources and concrete steps to ensure ongoing leadership in the Congress and the Obama Administration. We’ve gotten new legislation introduced in Congress, and we’ve been successful at increasing the level and effectiveness of U.S. financial commitments for ending global hunger.
This morning we all met again – this time with Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, the U.S. Ambassador to the Rome-based UN food agencies. Ambassador Cousin briefed us on the progress being made to bring greater efficiency to the United Nations, and to increase financial commitments and coordination of government and private sector donors all over the world.
For the first time, the U.S. Government has a fully operational coordinating committee on food security, which means that high-level staff from all the relevant agencies like the State Department, the National Security Council, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Commerce Department, and many more meet regularly to develop joint plans. And the U.S. commitment of £2 billion a year to the goal of ending global hunger shows just how serious our country is about addressing this global problem. With more than a billion people suffering every day from hunger, this new commitment is welcome.
What Ambassador Cousin told us this morning is fabulous news, and news I wanted to share with all Mercy Corps supporters. She said “When you hear us making bold statements about ending global hunger, it is in large part because of the hard work of you and all your supporters in the U.S. Because with that support we know that we can stand behind our promises and deliver results.”
This next year is going to bring many truly historic opportunities for us to contribute to and lead these ongoing efforts and I hope many Mercy Corps supporters will join us in this important mission!
Blog Post: Posted November 18, 2009, 10:11 am by Bija Gutoff
A fish cup of rice
Country: Liberia
Topics: Food/Nutrition, Hunger
Rice is a staple food in Liberia. But it's not easy for Liberians to fill their bowls or their bellies these days. Like poor people the world over, they've been slammed by the steep increases in food prices of the past couple of years.
Driving around the country, we do see rice for sale — in small shops and roadside stands and open air markets. I stop to talk to the vendors about what it costs.
A "fish cup" of rice now costs about 28 cents in Liberia's cities — three times what Liberians paid just four years ago. Photo: Bija Gutoff/Mercy Corps
This photo shows what Liberians call a "fish cup" or sometimes a "salmon cup" of rice — the empty sardine (or salmon or mackerel) can is the common unit of measure for a small purchase, perhaps enough for a family's meagre meal. In the capital Monrovia, a fish cup of rice now costs about 28 cents. In the rural areas, a fish cup of rice costs half that much — about 14 cents.
Little as the amount is, it's three times what Liberians paid just four years ago. And the hike in the price of rice is just one of the factors that are causing people to go hungry. Liberia is among a handful of countries at the very bottom of the list of the world's poorest.
I've seen gut-wrenching evidence of the country's poverty in my travels this week. Even for a writer like me, it's hard to put in words.
But I've been haunted by my photo of the fish cup. It reminds me that you can measure suffering in these very real daily examples — and you can measure progress that way, too. Mercy Corps is working in tiny towns and villages around Liberia to help people grow more food, to fill their supper pots with more fish cups of rice today and, most important, to learn the farming techniques that will keep them supplied with fish cups long into the future.
Blog Post: Posted October 2, 2009, 8:40 pm by Nancy Lindborg
A chance for the people of Zimbabwe
Country: Zimbabwe
Mercy Corps President Nancy Lindborg testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Zimbabwe. Photo: Sardari Group, Inc.
This week I had the honor of testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Zimbabwe, along with representatives from the State Department, USAID, the Treasury Department and several think tanks. As the sole representative of an international humanitarian organisation, I focused my remarks on how to advance recovery and reconstruction efforts in the country.
We have an important opportunity to help support the nascent progress of a country that has spiraled into collapse over the last decade. The changes that we have witnessed in Zimbabwe since the advent of the Unity Government in February of this year have been important — improvements to the economy, a vastly improved working environment for non-governmental organisations and a real grassroots desire for positive change. During my trip this summer to Zimbabwe, I saw growing glimmers of hope and increased optimism in the communities I visited.
Most important has been the stabilization of an economy that at one point reached a daily inflation rate of more that 100,000 percent! As one man expressed to me, “You have no idea what it is like to wake up with some money, enough to buy bread for your children, but then you can’t find the bread. The shops are not able to stock their shelves due to inflation. Finally, at the end of the day you find the bread, but you can no longer afford it as the price has tripled.”
Zimbabweans experienced vital relief when the economy was dollarized in February 2009, enabling shops to stock goods. As a result, life for many — although not all — is returning to greater normalcy.
Food shortages, food insecurity, cholera — these are humanitarian crises in Zimbabwe that will return without a more concerted effort to address the systemic failures. As I told the Senators, the challenge today is to move beyond the series of humanitarian band-aids we have been applying and begin supporting the early recovery and reconstruction of Zimbabwe.
There was remarkable consensus among my think tank co-panelists that now is the time to re-engage with Zimbabwe. Make the bet on the best option available right now for Zimbabweans. Help them move in the right direction and help them avoid the ravages of the recent humanitarian disasters.
I applaud Senator Feingold and Senator Isakson for holding this important hearing and strongly hope the United States will push forward with important, incremental assistance. The courageous people of Zimbabwe deserve this chance.
You can read my full testimony to the Senate here.
Blog Post: Posted September 30, 2009, 4:50 pm by Sonya Shannon
The resilence of children
Country: Uganda
Topics: Youth, Rural, Hunger, Food/Nutrition, Environment, Economic Development, Climate Change, Children
Today I learned about the true resilience of children.
We set out to meet with villagers from northern Uganda's Kotido county, which is about three hours from where I am based in Pader. We were going there to prepare the community members in Nakeplemoru to organise a peace committee, as well as discuss with them how this peace building structure could be used as a way to handle conflicts at the community level.
But we had to get there first.
Riding along the dry rugged road, I wondered how the day would end. With each twist and turn along the road, around pot holes and washed out sections caused by heavy rains, I bobbed up and down and was tossed about with an occasionally jarring thump. I was beginning to see how poor infrastructure can create major delays in development, preventing the flow of goods from reaching markets, delaying travel and ultimately slowing down progress as a whole. I also now understand why most non-governmental organisation vehicles that frequent the roads of Pader, Kotido, Kitgum and Lira carry a spare reserve of two tires on the rack instead of the usual one.
Photo: Sonya Shannon/Mercy Corps
As we drove further north, I began to notice the scenery changing from rich greens and muted red browns to simply dull and dusty brown. The thriving first season’s crops that I once saw farther south, of sorghum, maize and beans were now replaced with half-shriveled fields of groundnuts, far too gone to be revived.
Upon riding farther north, closer to the Sudan border, it became evident that this area really is “where Saharan and Sub-Saharan meet.” The talk you often hear about the poorest of the poor being the most affected by climate change really begins to hit home. Headlines that read “Food insecurity rises for northern Ugandans" are evident in the failed crops that line the roads.
Uganda as a country is “food secure” but the northern parts, most affected by prolonged drought, are where the poorest and least equipped to handle it are bearing the brunt of the burden, and feeling the greatest impact. The outcome has resulted in a decrease in health, lower incomes and declining morale, leaving many dependent on food handouts in order to survive, as well as feeling discouraged about future developments.
As I shifted my focus back to the meeting ahead of us, I began to reflect on what I’d previously heard about tribunals and committees that have been formed in other areas such as Rwanda, in an attempt to achieve reconciliation. I also thought on how they’ve not been so successful, though some have been more government initiated than community driven, and I wondered what the outcome will be here in northern Uganda.
I began to notice, as we drove along, the groups of Karamojong women walking alongside the road. They strolled gracefully by, with plastic jerry cans of water and bags stuffed full of rations balanced perfectly on their heads. They stood out with their brightly coloured clothing amongst the dull hues of the landscape. Their dark skin set a perfect mahogany background for the fabrics of pink, red and bright green shawls that wrapped across their torsos, tied in a knot across their backs. Their tall thin legs were partially covered down to the knee with a type of skirt made of tan and red plaid, complete with pleats that resembled a kilt. Their heads were mostly clean shaven, but some were crowned with narrow patches of hair closely cropped to the scalp.
A young boy who is not camara shy at Nakaplemoru Photo: Sonya Shannon/Mercy Corps
I wondered as I watched them walk along what had inspired their tribal wear. Had it been due to previous colonial encounters or had they simply taken part of the décor from their cousins to the east in Kenya, the Masai? As we passed them, we waved awkwardly like silly tourists, yet they kindly returned the gesture.
Upon arriving in the village, we parked the vehicle and greeted the few who had already gathered under the shade of a large tree. We continued to mingle while we waited for others to arrive, as word spread throughout the village that Mercy Corps was here. After talking for a bit with some of the adults and elders, I gravitated to a group of children that I noticed were pointing at me and laughing.
I began to introduce myself to each one and shake hands (shaking hands is customary here). As I peered closer into the faces of these children, I began to notice the whites of their eyes tinted in a yellow haze. Some have a secretion that formed puddles in the corners of their eyes, and I noticed this seems quite uniform as I make my rounds. I surmise this is a sign of ill health, which is later confirmed as I’m told that jaundiced eyes are often a symptom of malaria, sickness and liver disorders in this land where illness is tolerated, due to lack of medical attention, and the fortunate simply live on.
Despite their obvious rough surroundings and lack of health and nutrition, they seemed to focus on the moment and take great pleasure in getting their pictures taken. They smiled and laughed at my attempts to entertain them as we crouched next to the closest surface to write on: a large rock. I wrote my name in blue chalk that one of the children ran to get.
As I wrote, again and again, spelling out every letter aloud, I wondered what life would have been like for these resilient children if they had access to more. If they didn’t have to haul water, herd goats, work at the market or in the fields. If they could go to school, eat healthy meals and didn’t have to grow up so soon.
Life isn't easy here. Yet the children of the Acholi and Karamojong people of northern Uganda are still resilient. They still smile.
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