2020 & The World's Zero Hunger Goal

2020 & The World's Zero Hunger Goal

2020 and The World’s Zero Hunger Goal

“Vision is a fundamental requirement for world changers”, said a wise man I so much respect. It’s a really great and amazing initiative taken up by world leaders to set up the 17 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). Each of those goals are targeted towards solving major problems before the year 2030. They are SMART goals (specific, measurable, accurate, realistic and time-bound).  It all depends on how we see things.

2^nd of the 17 goals is the Zero Hunger goal. The first time I came across this, the first question in my heart was, “Is this really feasible?” “Zero-Hunger?” Please don’t judge my thought yet, don’t be in haste. I’m African; I was birthed and raised in an urban-rural settlement. My eyes have seen. I know what poverty looks like; I can identify it with my five senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell and feeling. Africa and Asia are the top focus when it comes to subjects like this. But the challenge is that, even in developed countries like America, China, Canada and the likes, poverty is yet to be completely eliminated.

According to the US, anyone or any people who live below the standard of feeding $1 per day is in the poverty threshold. And to deal with hunger is to first deal with poverty. They go hand-in-hand. We can’t discuss hunger among the rich, for them it is more likely to be the problems of over-nutrition and maybe under-nutrition in rare cases too, due to eating disorder or ignorance of what good nutrition entails.

Don’t be in a haste to judge my initial thought, I was not born with a silver spoon. And I have a taste of hunger too. I’ve gone days without eating, I wasn’t fasting; I totally had nothing to eat. That’s a story for some other time anyway. My point is Hunger isn’t pleasurable. Hunger is a terrible thing that no well-living person should pray for. Some claim it can be responsible for bringing the criminal out of a sane person.

It cost me a change of mindset to consider the Zero Hunger goal a possibility. Even though with it are many conditions, but it is still possible. Nothing is possible to the mind that considers impossibility. To the mind that will not entertain impossibility for an answer, comes the question, “How can I make this possible?”

The SDGs are goals for 2030, here we are in 2020. For me the question is, “How far have we covered in the last five years?”. 2030 is ten years ahead. I listened to the CEO of Aliko Dangote Foundation in a particular video on YouTube last year, and I heard her clearly say that the vision of the foundation was to bring hunger level in Nigeria to zero level among infants. It sounds amazing to the ears; the truth is they are doing the best they can towards achieving that.

The challenge I see on the other hand is this, some ignore these goals and consider them worthless, others feel and think the government should solve that, the very rich can contribute to that. These mindsets of laissez-faire and negativity are what will water the potency of this goal. If we all can commit to this, there is much more we can achieve. Committing to it, is living for a purpose which is greater than you.

2030 is both far and near, when others begin to draw their mouth over the possibility and achievement of this goal, the successes and the short-comings, how much will you be able to say you have committed to it? Mother Theresa said it all in the statement, “If you cannot feed a thousand, feed just one.”

Great thanks to the nutritional philanthropists all over the world, you are doing a lot of good to the world at large. We await the next Luthers, the next Lincolns, the next Mandelas, the next Jacksons, the next Rockefellers, even the ones with greater personality traits that the world has never hosted.

Think Zero Hunger, picture possibilities!

Oluwadurotimi Okediji

Food, Nutrients & Health

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