40,000 Afghans die every year of hunger and poverty

40,000 Afghans die every year of hunger and poverty (that's 25 times more than those who die of violence), according to the FAO and a UN Security Council report of December 2008. Part of the problem is that Afghanistan has faced a drought which reduced agricultural production; but war and the neglect of agriculture and aid in general by the United States and other countries doesn't help either. The 40,000 people who die every year of hunger and poverty are collateral damage in Afghanistan's violence.

Some of the main points:

-The percentage of the population unable to meet its minimum food requirements has risen by 5 per cent since 2005, to 35 per cent.
-The World Food Programme (WFP) assesses 8.8 million Afghans as being vulnerable to food
shortages.
-The numbers of those who cannot meet their minimum dietary needs in Afghanistan is on the rise, growing from 30 percent to 35 percent between 2005 and 2008. The crisis is expected to worsen over the next few months as the impact of local drought and high global food prices push more Afghans into food insecurity.
-Part of the problem is drought. Last year, the country received less than 24 percent of the rainfall level of 2007, resulting in an 85 percent drop in wheat production. Overall, there occurred a 30 percent drop in cereal harvest over the previous year countrywide. Today, on average, an Afghan family spends 77 percent of its income on food, compared to 56 percent in 2005.
-Despite the urgency, and awareness among international monitors, concern has not translated into relief. A Joint Emergency Food Appeal launched in July 2008 by the Afghan government and the UN, calling for $404 million to "feed Afghanistan’s most vulnerable people who are in desperate need of food aid," was dismally under-funded. Despite repeated appeals, it has only been half-funded.
-According to Oxfam, the health of over a million young children and half a million women is at serious risk due to malnutrition. One out of every two Afghan children under five is stunted and 39 percent are underweight, the humanitarian agency says.
-Though 80 percent of Afghanistan’s population is dependent on agriculture, the sector has been one of the most under-funded, receiving only $500 million out of the $15 billion spent on non-security related reconstruction in this country. The country’s leading donor, the United States, is estimated to have spent less than 5 percent of USAID’s budget for Afghanistan since 2002 on agriculture. In 2007, US spending on agriculture amounted to less than 1 percent of what it spent on security.


In general, this shows again that the US and world powers are not committed to improving quality of life in Afghanistan; their goals are first military. This is shown directly by looking at how they spend their money: every day, total international aid to Afghanistan is $7 million, against $100 million spent on the military by the US alone every day:
Reconstruction assistance is a fraction of military spending. Since 2001 the United States has appropriated $127 billion for the war in Afghanistan and the US military is currently spending nearly $100 million a day in the country, some $36 billion a year. Yet the average volume of international aid provided by all donors since 2001 is woefully inadequate at just $7 million per day.
There is an aid shortfall of $10bn: donors committed to give $25bn aid since 2001 but have only delivered $15bn.
One problem is that an estimated 40% of aid goes back to donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries – some 6bn since 2001. (From Matt Waldman, "Falling Short: Aid effectiveness in Afghanistan", ACBAR Advocacy Series, March 2008).