Could two billion dollars solve world hunger?

In the words of the old Jewish joke, “It couldn’t hurt!”

Take half of it and apply it to birth control. That would definitely help in one generation.

Maybe temporarily, but then the problems would come back as people continue to populate.

Perhaps, though it depends on how you use it. The problem typically isn’t actually the absence of food, but why food isn’t being made available to various people. I expect that two billion dollars, in the hands of enough sincerely benevolent people with enough understanding of what actually needs to be done could more or less handle at least the cases where there isn’t a direct political prevention, such as groups trying to prevent food being given to some people, in backward places (such as some parts of the USA…).

@Zaku, that last part is news to me. Where in the U.S. are political groups actively trying to prevent food from being given to some people? I take that as an entirely different matter from trying to channel those resources somewhere other than to the intended recipients (i.e., greed vs. deliberate withholding).

Do you agree that $2B could actually “solve” world hunger? And for how long? A day, a year, forever? If not forever, it isn’t “solved,” right?

By the way, the linked story said $6B. It also contains this statement:

In 2020, the agency received $8.4 billion in donations, which it says was $5.3 billion short of its requirements. Its top donors include the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The agency is the UN World Food Program. Arithmetic says they were looking for $13.7B in 2020. So it does not sound like $6B was the actual number. Musk just latched onto that figure and promoted it.

The article is short and worth reading. It is by no means as simple an offer as the topic suggests.

For a week, maybe.

@Jeruba
I think that 6 billion would weedle down to actual 2 billion being given after all agencies etc paid.

@Jeruba A Wisconsin school board opted out of the government free lunch program because free food would spoil the children.

@Jeruba

About illegality of feeding the homeless in various US locations:
https://www.lowincome.org/2016/08/more-than-70-cities-illegal-feed-homeless.html

https://www.newsweek.com/illegal-feed-criminalizing-homeless-america-782861

https://www.trueactivist.com/it-is-illegal-to-feed-the-homeless-in-cities-all-over-the-united-states/

etc.

But yes, that is mostly a different matter from places where, say, the local warlord may seize whatever relief is brought into their territory.

“Do you agree that $2B could actually “solve” world hunger? And for how long? A day, a year, forever? If not forever, it isn’t “solved,” right?”
– Yes, but as I wrote, I think money is only part of what’s needed, or perhaps much less money for a central effort – what’s really needed is people who understand each situation, and people who understand how to have effective conversations that get the needed results.

The numbers you’re citing are the estimates for that organization and the targets and methods that make sense to them. What I’ve been referring to is that I think systematic long-term change will require changing conversations and policies, more than specific practical shorter-term relief programs.

I’ve been donating for many years to the HeiferProject.org which provides livestock and sustainable agricultural training to people in poorer areas so that they can produce more food and lift themselves out of poverty. These kind of projects could go a long way to ending world hunger if well implemented.

Spend the money to move the people to where the food is! Classic Sam Kinison, World Hunger . There is a lot of truth beneath that humor.
I’d add “stop reproducing”.

I would say best laid plans never work out as one thinks they will, but as @janbb said, it couldn’t hurt to try.

I also agree about birth control. There are organizations that try to help with birth control in very poor countries that often have low levels of education, are high on the religious scale, and little access to birth control otherwise. I think the Gates Foundation does some of that and other organizations.

@Zaku I wish I could remember what show I was watching (some female target market talk show like The View) where a woman talked about being homeless and desperate and she was digging in the trash behind a restaurant to feed herself and daughter one evening. The owner happened to step out at that moment and caught her and she started to back up and got ready to run, and the owner told her to stop, and for some reason she obeyed. The owner told her to come every day at a certain time and fed them for free for months. I wondered when I heard the story if it was ilegal in that state to feed them. There was no mention of it.

Eventually, the woman got back on her feet, but said she doesn’t know what would have happened if it hadn’t been for that restaurant owner.

How do we know our donations actually go to world hunger, the needy, poor children, abused dogs, etc?
We had an area in my state that flooded and wiped out many homes and businesses in 2016.
The state rallied and people donated and even famous people from my state like Jennifer Garner and some country singer donated HUGE amounts of money. Fast forward to 2021. People are still living in tents and campers, waiting for someone to help them. They were promised new homes. These people don’t want a 4 bedroom brick home. They just want a home that is warm and safe. Some were given defective mobile homes.
Also the millions of dollars sent to the people that survived the tsunami in the Indian ocean in 2004. Most people did not see that money. Where did it go?

I do not think it would solve it. As others stated, it can help if delivered properly.

“Trick of Treat for UNICEF”!!!

@JLeslie Great example. Restaurants and grocery stores produce huge amounts of unused food, much of it of high quality, and only social notions, various legal barriers, and/or organization and information are in the way of using it to provide for people in need. In many places in the US it is entirely legal and being done in one way or another, while in other places there are laws against it.

@chyna Here is an article on what happened to the 2004 tsunami relief money.

@Zaku: What happens, at least in the area I live in, is, when a restaurant or grocery store wants to donate unused food, people say “Why should we take your garbage?” and “Why should we take expired food?” so the restaurants and grocery stores pull back and throw it out, because it’s easier for them to throw it out than to donate it and hear criticism.

The approach and framing of looking at hunger as though it exists in an ahistorical vacuum and can only be solved via philanthropy is a large part of the problem. We look at a situation that – in large part – has been created by systemic inequities and ask whether the perpetrators can give back a small sum to offset the crimes that have been committed.

If we were just to look at hunger and food insecurity in the US, we needn’t try to come up with some dollar amount that “benevolent” billionaires need to donate to solve it. Why don’t we just not allow these billionaires to create the hunger in the first place? When we live in a country without basic human rights, such as healthcare or parental leave or childcare or living wages, of course you’re going to have food insecurity. Add in hundreds of years of intergenerational class and race inequality, the prison industrial complex, and the perpetual redistribution of wealth towards the most wealthy, it’s pretty absurd to then cry for philanthropy as the solution. The solution is far upstream, and we all know what it takes.

Global hunger is certainly more complicated, but it’s not as though the players and variables are not the same. The exploitation of the global south and history of imperialism cannot be ignored. Resource extraction and the destruction of countries for the benefit of corporations has an expected and predictable result. Asking these very same exploiters to give back a little isn’t the only route. The first steps certainly should be to stop creating more damage and hunger.