Poverty And World Hunger Essay Example

families with a monthly ration of grains if their child was attending and enrolled in primary school, whereas the PES program simply gives cash to these low-income families for sending their children to primary school. The main reason for this change was due to increased leakage of the monthly ration of food from the suppliers. Also, the government of Bangladesh incorporated a school feeding program where they provided a packet of biscuits to students in primary schools along with the PES program, in hopes to increase student retention rates during school as they would not be distracted due to hunger. Along with the Bangladesh government, the World Food Programme (WFP) and stakeholder groups such as policymakers, local community groups, and school authorities have a hand in helping to solve the issue of hunger in students and their families, therefore they have a hand in contributing to the FFE programs.

The government wants to continue to decrease the poverty rate and increase the rate of education in its country. Policymakers are always looking for ways to reduce hunger and poverty, so they are motivated to design effective programs that address these issues, such as the FFE programs. Although local community groups are not directly responsible for solving the issue of hunger and poverty being a hindrance on education, they are important as they have power and say in their communities regarding the direction of the programs. Overall, the goal of the government and stakeholders is to decrease the rates of poverty and increase education rates in Bangladesh by attracting low-income families to send their children to primary school through food incentives provided by food for education programs.

From the case study, the root cause of families not being able to escape poverty in Bangladesh is a lack of education. This lack of education is due to the costs of schooling, even when excluding tuition, such as clothes, transportation, books, and materials.

Therefore, many children in poor families tend to forego pursuing an education and get jobs instead, in order to provide and contribute to the family. This leads to generations and generations of families being stuck in the same spot, making poverty a nearly impossible state to escape from. In order to combat poverty, education must be prioritized, as education rates increase a decrease in poverty should follow. Food-for-education programs need to be prioritized as the incentive for poor families to be able to send their children to school in order to get an education. The evidence of the positive impacts of FFE programs are prevalent, therefore the programs must be extended and made more widespread.

Also, the case study mentioned leakages but did not address how to solve them. There must be a greater sense of urgency in order to protect the FFE programs against leakages, as it increased from 7% in 1994 to the 16-20% range in the year 2000. 1 Giving the responsibility of distributing the monthly rations of food should be in the hands of school administration and not be privatized. In efforts to solve the problem of poverty and increase the number of students enrolled in primary school in Bangladesh, Akhter Ahmed and Suresh Babu discussed how the government of Bangladesh incorporated food-for-education programs beginning in 1993. In this program, poor students and their families were given either rice

or wheat monthly as long as their child was enrolled in and attended primary school. Then, in 2002 the government introduced the Primary Education Stipend (PES) program, providing low-income families with cash, rather than a monthly ration of food, largely due to the increase in leakage.

1 Also, in 2002 the Bangladesh government teamed up with the World Food Programme to introduce a program which provided students with a snack in the morning, ensuring that hunger would not distract their learning abilities. Research done on these programs concluded that FFE programs achieved a multitude of positives, such as increasing the number of students enrolled in school, attendance, and a decline in dropouts.1 Although the results obtained in the study provide evidence of the positive impacts of FFE programs in Bangladesh, it is also beneficial to apply a theoretical perspective to look into how to increase education rates and decrease poverty rates. The Public Health Communication (PHC) model is an appropriate theory that can be applied to this situation in Bangladesh, and to poverty around the globe. The situation of Bangladesh, where families in poverty are remaining stuck in the same position for generations due to a lack of education can be progressed by the application of the Public Health Communication Model. Developing a sound strategy to promote education in poor households, testing if it is successful in one school in terms of attendance and admittance rates, then expanding to more schools and implementing the same strategy there is the route that those who apply the PHC model would follow. After implementation, it is important to look at your strategy and evaluate it, looking to tweak areas

of the program and improve in areas that need to be improved upon.

Many people equate poverty to the lack of money. Rather, poverty is more holistically, the inability to function adequately in a community or society.3 In order to combat the poverty trap that has captured generation of families, an increase in educational participation is imperative. Educated individuals are more likely to attain better-paying jobs, pursue careers, and be more active in their social communities. All of these factors are byproducts of increased education and they each contribute to the economic growth of individuals, families, communities, and countries, hence causing poverty to decline. An alternative solution that still goes along with FFE programs would be for developed, western powers such as the United States to invest more money into programs that eradicate poverty in low-income, less developed countries such as Bangladesh. The United States gives a mere 17 cents per every 100 dollars as aid to the poor, not even 1%.

4 In fact, the government spends north of 100 times more on its military than it gives to Africa as aid.4 If developed, western global powers, such as the United States and European countries, would give even 0.7% of their respective GDP’s to poverty-stricken countries, global poverty would be in a much better place and we would be able to much more effectively control the impacts of poverty, such as low education rates.4 This increase in funding would allow for governments of these poor countries, such as Bangladesh, to fund measures such as improving the quality of their education rather than using their capital to fund food for poor families in order to incentivize education,

something that would be taken care of by the aid from western powers. One practical recommendation for decreasing poverty and increasing educational participation in Bangladesh is for a humanitarian aid organization such as CARE, who fights against poverty and world hunger, to form partnerships with organizations who share similar goals as them, such as the World Food Programme, and use that power to lobby governments for greater official aid towards poverty-stricken countries. In 2002, in the Monterrey Consensus, the U.S. pledged to provide 70 cents per every 100 dollars as aid to poor countries but did not follow through with this promise over the years since.4 This recommendation addresses the problem by allowing the government of Bangladesh to focus their funds toward improving the quality of their education rather than having to spend their capital on the FFE programs, as the increased aid can contribute towards those costs. It is important for Bangladesh to improve their quality of education as research shows that when education is adjusted for quality, it has a direct relationship with economic growth.

In order to carry out this plan, the CARE organization needs to establish partnerships with organizations such as UNICEF and the World Food Programme, allowing them to use their political power to lobby governments in order to increase aid to fight the poverty and increase education rates in Bangladesh. The groups mentioned above, along with the governments of global powers such as the United States, and the Bangladesh government are responsible for implementing this plan. All of the money must be used to decrease poverty, as there is no leeway for corruption. Goals should be established to eradicate poverty

and significantly increase education participation in Bangladesh. By the year of 2020, there should be a significant increase in official aid from global powers for the FFE programs of Bangladesh.

By 2023, the education system should be reformed and educational participation should see an increase. By 2030, poverty rates of Bangladesh should be significantly low, amongst the best in the world and education rates should be very high. In my opinion, the Bangladesh government has done a great job and has made very conscious efforts in order to decrease poverty and increase educational participation through the FFE programs. With evidence showing significant progress, the government should continue to build upon what they have established, and I think that they will be best equipped to do so with increased funding from global powers. Compared to the FFE in Uganda, both countries experienced similar results.

In Uganda, cognitive development of students was increased, as were math scores by 16.7 points. 5 Both countries exhibited an increase in cognitive development, academic performance, and levels of happiness displayed at home, due to the lack of hunger.