Sustainable Development and the World Food Crisis

One of the most highly effective ways of eradicating world hunger lies in sustainable development. This type of development seeks to discover ways to sustain energy without interfering or hurting future generations. As a resource for ensuring a bright future for the world, sustainable development offers many ways to eliminate this issue. In order to benefit world hunger, in particular, these types of changes are to be made in three fields; economic, social, and environmental. 

Through these various objectives, strategies must be executed based primarily on each individual field to maintain a healthy balance between all three. As Giddings et al, (2002) “The separation of environment, society and economy often leads to a narrow techno-scientific approach” (p. 187). This must be acknowledged, as many issues between all of these fields conflict with one another, making it difficult to find one specific solution to the problem that is world hunger. This insinuates that these problems must all be recognized congruently.

Socially, some aspects that can be considered to specifically change the course for world hunger are labor rights, human rights, social equity, and health equity. By each country contributing in a positive manner to these problems, world hunger could dissipate drastically. Ensuring labor rights would provide each citizen to work without worry of legalities, and would ensure job stability for many people who are insecure about their financial standing. By having a job the ability to provide food for one’s family becomes exponentially easier. Hunger issues in the world are primarily based on the lack of basic human needs. If human rights are instilled in each country, there could be a better chance for the people of that country to flourish. By allowing each person to express their individuality, they are able to not only flourish in job settings, but are able to create new job opportunities for themselves or others. This could easily stimulate each country’s economy. Unfortunately because of strict political guidelines in other cultures, these rights do not exist, and thus neither does the opportunity to succeed.  Social equity and health equity are perhaps the most important factors for the social aspect of sustainable development. By ensuring social equity for the community members, it is allowing equal opportunity to advance financially both for those who have a moderate income and for the poorest of the community. Health equity would ensure that those who may suffer from malnutrition are properly cared for and rehabilitated.

Environmental sustainability is perhaps one of the easiest yet most expensive strategies to institute. Agriculturally, it is imperative that major companies affiliate themselves with ethically and environmentally sound supply companies. Sadly, because of the economic hardships of many countries, integrating environmentally friendly systems such as water filtering are extremely hard to finance. Using energy efficiently is something that is overlooked simply because it is easier and more financially efficient to waste than it is to decipher where to cut costs. This leads to mass waste, and this waste could easily be included in the food supply for those that are deprived. Many companies perceive that the time and money it takes corporate businesses to cut costs is not worth the money at the moment; rather than looking at the future benefits such as food security, which is the main goal of sustainable development.

The economic approach seems to be the most important objective of assuring success toward sustainable development contributing to world hunger. This would allow businesses to prosper and consistently turn a profit while cutting costs. The costs that are cut could be put toward charity for world hunger, as well as developing new jobs to employ those who are struggling financially. By employing those who are financially unstable, it allows financial growth both for the company as well as the employee. This allows for that employee to provide food for their family that could be malnourished. A constant economic flow is imperative for the other cycles to work as well.

Sustainable development through economic, social, and environmental aspects is the key to advance the state of the world by creating and maintaining a livable environment for the present while ensuring a safe and hazardless world for the future. Although this technique is difficult to configure in a worldwide sense, it is certainly worth exploring the options of how it could benefit world hunger.

Work Cited

Giddings, Bob, Bill Hopwood, and Geoff O'Brien. "Environment, Economy and Society: Fitting Them Together into Sustainable Development." Sustainable Development 10.4 (2002):187-196. Print.