| Recorded at | July 14, 2011 |
|---|---|
| Event | TEDGlobal 2011 |
| Duration (min:sec) | 18:48 |
| Video Type | TED Stage Talk |
| Words per minute | 178.03 medium |
| Readability (FK) | 59.57 easy |
| Speaker | Josette Sheeran |
| Country | United States of America |
| Occupation | diplomat, politician |
| Description | American diplomat |
Official TED page for this talk
Synopsis
Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Program, talks about why, in a world with enough food for everyone, people still go hungry, still die of starvation, still use food as a weapon of war. Her vision: "Food is one issue that cannot be solved person by person. We have to stand together."
| 1 | 00:15 | Well after many years working in trade and economics, | ||
| 2 | 00:18 | four years ago, | ||
| 3 | 00:20 | I found myself working on the front lines | ||
| 4 | 00:22 | of human vulnerability. | ||
| 5 | 00:25 | And I found myself in the places | ||
| 6 | 00:27 | where people are fighting every day to survive | ||
| 7 | 00:30 | and can't even obtain a meal. | ||
| 8 | 00:34 | This red cup comes from Rwanda | ||
| 9 | 00:36 | from a child named Fabian. | ||
| 10 | 00:38 | And I carry this around | ||
| 11 | 00:40 | as a symbol, really, of the challenge | ||
| 12 | 00:42 | and also the hope. | ||
| 13 | 00:44 | Because one cup of food a day | ||
| 14 | 00:46 | changes Fabian's life completely. | ||
| 15 | 00:49 | But what I'd like to talk about today | ||
| 16 | 00:52 | is the fact that this morning, | ||
| 17 | 00:55 | about a billion people on Earth -- | ||
| 18 | 00:57 | or one out of every seven -- | ||
| 19 | 00:59 | woke up and didn't even know | ||
| 20 | 01:01 | how to fill this cup. | ||
| 21 | 01:03 | One out of every seven people. | ||
| 22 | 01:07 | First, I'll ask you: Why should you care? | ||
| 23 | 01:09 | Why should we care? | ||
| 24 | 01:11 | For most people, | ||
| 25 | 01:13 | if they think about hunger, | ||
| 26 | 01:15 | they don't have to go far back on their own family history -- | ||
| 27 | 01:18 | maybe in their own lives, or their parents' lives, | ||
| 28 | 01:20 | or their grandparents' lives -- | ||
| 29 | 01:22 | to remember an experience of hunger. | ||
| 30 | 01:25 | I rarely find an audience | ||
| 31 | 01:27 | where people can go back very far without that experience. | ||
| 32 | 01:30 | Some are driven by compassion, | ||
| 33 | 01:32 | feel it's perhaps | ||
| 34 | 01:34 | one of the fundamental acts of humanity. | ||
| 35 | 01:36 | As Gandhi said, | ||
| 36 | 01:38 | "To a hungry man, a piece of bread is the face of God." | ||
| 37 | 01:42 | Others worry about peace and security, | ||
| 38 | 01:45 | stability in the world. | ||
| 39 | 01:47 | We saw the food riots in 2008, | ||
| 40 | 01:50 | after what I call the silent tsunami of hunger | ||
| 41 | 01:53 | swept the globe when food prices doubled overnight. | ||
| 42 | 01:56 | The destabilizing effects of hunger | ||
| 43 | 01:59 | are known throughout human history. | ||
| 44 | 02:01 | One of the most fundamental acts of civilization | ||
| 45 | 02:04 | is to ensure people can get enough food. | ||
| 46 | 02:07 | Others think about Malthusian nightmares. | ||
| 47 | 02:11 | Will we be able to feed a population | ||
| 48 | 02:14 | that will be nine billion in just a few decades? | ||
| 49 | 02:17 | This is not a negotiable thing, hunger. | ||
| 50 | 02:19 | People have to eat. | ||
| 51 | 02:21 | There's going to be a lot of people. | ||
| 52 | 02:23 | This is jobs and opportunity all the way up and down the value chain. | ||
| 53 | 02:27 | But I actually came to this issue | ||
| 54 | 02:29 | in a different way. | ||
| 55 | 02:32 | This is a picture of me and my three children. | ||
| 56 | 02:35 | In 1987, I was a new mother | ||
| 57 | 02:37 | with my first child | ||
| 58 | 02:39 | and was holding her and feeding her | ||
| 59 | 02:42 | when an image very similar to this | ||
| 60 | 02:45 | came on the television. | ||
| 61 | 02:48 | And this was yet another famine in Ethiopia. | ||
| 62 | 02:51 | One two years earlier | ||
| 63 | 02:53 | had killed more than a million people. | ||
| 64 | 02:56 | But it never struck me as it did that moment, | ||
| 65 | 02:59 | because on that image | ||
| 66 | 03:01 | was a woman trying to nurse her baby, | ||
| 67 | 03:03 | and she had no milk to nurse. | ||
| 68 | 03:07 | And the baby's cry really penetrated me, | ||
| 69 | 03:10 | as a mother. | ||
| 70 | 03:12 | And I thought, there's nothing more haunting | ||
| 71 | 03:14 | than the cry of a child | ||
| 72 | 03:16 | that cannot be returned with food -- | ||
| 73 | 03:21 | the most fundamental expectation of every human being. | ||
| 74 | 03:24 | And it was at that moment | ||
| 75 | 03:26 | that I just was filled | ||
| 76 | 03:29 | with the challenge and the outrage | ||
| 77 | 03:32 | that actually we know how to fix this problem. | ||
| 78 | 03:34 | This isn't one of those rare diseases | ||
| 79 | 03:36 | that we don't have the solution for. | ||
| 80 | 03:39 | We know how to fix hunger. | ||
| 81 | 03:41 | A hundred years ago, we didn't. | ||
| 82 | 03:43 | We actually have the technology and systems. | ||
| 83 | 03:46 | And I was just struck | ||
| 84 | 03:49 | that this is out of place. | ||
| 85 | 03:51 | At our time in history, these images are out of place. | ||
| 86 | 03:54 | Well guess what? | ||
| 87 | 03:56 | This is last week in northern Kenya. | ||
| 88 | 03:59 | Yet again, | ||
| 89 | 04:01 | the face of starvation | ||
| 90 | 04:03 | at large scale | ||
| 91 | 04:05 | with more than nine million people | ||
| 92 | 04:08 | wondering if they can make it to the next day. | ||
| 93 | 04:11 | In fact, | ||
| 94 | 04:13 | what we know now | ||
| 95 | 04:15 | is that every 10 seconds | ||
| 96 | 04:17 | we lose a child to hunger. | ||
| 97 | 04:19 | This is more | ||
| 98 | 04:21 | than HIV/AIDS, | ||
| 99 | 04:24 | malaria and tuberculosis combined. | ||
| 100 | 04:27 | And we know that the issue | ||
| 101 | 04:29 | is not just production of food. | ||
| 102 | 04:32 | One of my mentors in life | ||
| 103 | 04:34 | was Norman Borlaug, my hero. | ||
| 104 | 04:37 | But today I'm going to talk about access to food, | ||
| 105 | 04:40 | because actually this year and last year | ||
| 106 | 04:43 | and during the 2008 food crisis, | ||
| 107 | 04:45 | there was enough food on Earth | ||
| 108 | 04:47 | for everyone to have 2,700 kilocalories. | ||
| 109 | 04:50 | So why is it | ||
| 110 | 04:53 | that we have a billion people | ||
| 111 | 04:55 | who can't find food? | ||
| 112 | 04:57 | And I also want to talk about | ||
| 113 | 04:59 | what I call our new burden of knowledge. | ||
| 114 | 05:01 | In 2008, | ||
| 115 | 05:03 | Lancet compiled all the research | ||
| 116 | 05:06 | and put forward the compelling evidence | ||
| 117 | 05:10 | that if a child in its first thousand days -- | ||
| 118 | 05:13 | from conception to two years old -- | ||
| 119 | 05:16 | does not have adequate nutrition, | ||
| 120 | 05:18 | the damage is irreversible. | ||
| 121 | 05:20 | Their brains and bodies will be stunted. | ||
| 122 | 05:23 | And here you see a brain scan of two children -- | ||
| 123 | 05:26 | one who had adequate nutrition, | ||
| 124 | 05:28 | another, neglected | ||
| 125 | 05:30 | and who was deeply malnourished. | ||
| 126 | 05:32 | And we can see brain volumes | ||
| 127 | 05:34 | up to 40 percent less | ||
| 128 | 05:37 | in these children. | ||
| 129 | 05:39 | And in this slide | ||
| 130 | 05:41 | you see the neurons and the synapses of the brain | ||
| 131 | 05:44 | don't form. | ||
| 132 | 05:46 | And what we know now is this has huge impact on economies, | ||
| 133 | 05:49 | which I'll talk about later. | ||
| 134 | 05:51 | But also the earning potential of these children | ||
| 135 | 05:54 | is cut in half in their lifetime | ||
| 136 | 05:57 | due to the stunting | ||
| 137 | 05:59 | that happens in early years. | ||
| 138 | 06:01 | So this burden of knowledge drives me. | ||
| 139 | 06:04 | Because actually we know how to fix it | ||
| 140 | 06:07 | very simply. | ||
| 141 | 06:09 | And yet, in many places, | ||
| 142 | 06:11 | a third of the children, | ||
| 143 | 06:13 | by the time they're three | ||
| 144 | 06:15 | already are facing a life of hardship | ||
| 145 | 06:18 | due to this. | ||
| 146 | 06:20 | I'd like to talk about | ||
| 147 | 06:22 | some of the things I've seen on the front lines of hunger, | ||
| 148 | 06:24 | some of the things I've learned | ||
| 149 | 06:27 | in bringing my economic and trade knowledge | ||
| 150 | 06:30 | and my experience in the private sector. | ||
| 151 | 06:34 | I'd like to talk about where the gap of knowledge is. | ||
| 152 | 06:37 | Well first, I'd like to talk about the oldest nutritional method on Earth, | ||
| 153 | 06:40 | breastfeeding. | ||
| 154 | 06:42 | You may be surprised to know | ||
| 155 | 06:45 | that a child could be saved every 22 seconds | ||
| 156 | 06:48 | if there was breastfeeding in the first six months of life. | ||
| 157 | 06:53 | But in Niger, for example, | ||
| 158 | 06:56 | less than seven percent of the children | ||
| 159 | 06:58 | are breastfed | ||
| 160 | 07:00 | for the first six months of life, exclusively. | ||
| 161 | 07:03 | In Mauritania, less than three percent. | ||
| 162 | 07:07 | This is something that can be transformed with knowledge. | ||
| 163 | 07:11 | This message, this word, can come out | ||
| 164 | 07:13 | that this is not an old-fashioned way of doing business; | ||
| 165 | 07:16 | it's a brilliant way | ||
| 166 | 07:18 | of saving your child's life. | ||
| 167 | 07:20 | And so today we focus on not just passing out food, | ||
| 168 | 07:23 | but making sure the mothers have enough enrichment, | ||
| 169 | 07:26 | and teaching them about breastfeeding. | ||
| 170 | 07:29 | The second thing I'd like to talk about: | ||
| 171 | 07:31 | If you were living in a remote village somewhere, | ||
| 172 | 07:33 | your child was limp, | ||
| 173 | 07:35 | and you were in a drought, or you were in floods, | ||
| 174 | 07:38 | or you were in a situation where there wasn't adequate diversity of diet, | ||
| 175 | 07:41 | what would you do? | ||
| 176 | 07:43 | Do you think you could go to the store | ||
| 177 | 07:45 | and get a choice of power bars, like we can, | ||
| 178 | 07:48 | and pick the right one to match? | ||
| 179 | 07:50 | Well I find parents out on the front lines | ||
| 180 | 07:53 | very aware their children are going down for the count. | ||
| 181 | 07:56 | And I go to those shops, if there are any, | ||
| 182 | 07:59 | or out to the fields to see what they can get, | ||
| 183 | 08:02 | and they cannot obtain the nutrition. | ||
| 184 | 08:05 | Even if they know what they need to do, it's not available. | ||
| 185 | 08:08 | And I'm very excited about this, | ||
| 186 | 08:10 | because one thing we're working on | ||
| 187 | 08:13 | is transforming the technologies | ||
| 188 | 08:16 | that are very available | ||
| 189 | 08:18 | in the food industry | ||
| 190 | 08:20 | to be available for traditional crops. | ||
| 191 | 08:23 | And this is made with chickpeas, dried milk | ||
| 192 | 08:26 | and a host of vitamins, | ||
| 193 | 08:28 | matched to exactly what the brain needs. | ||
| 194 | 08:30 | It costs 17 cents for us to produce this | ||
| 195 | 08:33 | as, what I call, food for humanity. | ||
| 196 | 08:36 | We did this with food technologists | ||
| 197 | 08:38 | in India and Pakistan -- | ||
| 198 | 08:41 | really about three of them. | ||
| 199 | 08:43 | But this is transforming | ||
| 200 | 08:45 | 99 percent of the kids who get this. | ||
| 201 | 08:47 | One package, 17 cents a day -- | ||
| 202 | 08:50 | their malnutrition is overcome. | ||
| 203 | 08:52 | So I am convinced | ||
| 204 | 08:54 | that if we can unlock the technologies | ||
| 205 | 08:57 | that are commonplace in the richer world | ||
| 206 | 09:00 | to be able to transform foods. | ||
| 207 | 09:02 | And this is climate-proof. | ||
| 208 | 09:04 | It doesn't need to be refrigerated, it doesn't need water, | ||
| 209 | 09:06 | which is often lacking. | ||
| 210 | 09:08 | And these types of technologies, | ||
| 211 | 09:10 | I see, have the potential | ||
| 212 | 09:12 | to transform the face of hunger and nutrition, malnutrition | ||
| 213 | 09:15 | out on the front lines. | ||
| 214 | 09:18 | The next thing I want to talk about is school feeding. | ||
| 215 | 09:20 | Eighty percent of the people in the world | ||
| 216 | 09:22 | have no food safety net. | ||
| 217 | 09:24 | When disaster strikes -- | ||
| 218 | 09:27 | the economy gets blown, people lose a job, | ||
| 219 | 09:30 | floods, war, conflict, | ||
| 220 | 09:32 | bad governance, all of those things -- | ||
| 221 | 09:34 | there is nothing to fall back on. | ||
| 222 | 09:36 | And usually the institutions -- | ||
| 223 | 09:38 | churches, temples, other things -- | ||
| 224 | 09:40 | do not have the resources | ||
| 225 | 09:42 | to provide a safety net. | ||
| 226 | 09:44 | What we have found working with the World Bank | ||
| 227 | 09:46 | is that the poor man's safety net, | ||
| 228 | 09:48 | the best investment, is school feeding. | ||
| 229 | 09:50 | And if you fill the cup | ||
| 230 | 09:52 | with local agriculture from small farmers, | ||
| 231 | 09:55 | you have a transformative effect. | ||
| 232 | 09:57 | Many kids in the world can't go to school | ||
| 233 | 10:00 | because they have to go beg and find a meal. | ||
| 234 | 10:02 | But when that food is there, | ||
| 235 | 10:04 | it's transformative. | ||
| 236 | 10:06 | It costs less than 25 cents a day to change a kid's life. | ||
| 237 | 10:09 | But what is most amazing is the effect on girls. | ||
| 238 | 10:12 | In countries where girls don't go to school | ||
| 239 | 10:16 | and you offer a meal to girls in school, | ||
| 240 | 10:19 | we see enrollment rates | ||
| 241 | 10:21 | about 50 percent girls and boys. | ||
| 242 | 10:23 | We see a transformation in attendance by girls. | ||
| 243 | 10:26 | And there was no argument, | ||
| 244 | 10:28 | because it's incentive. | ||
| 245 | 10:30 | Families need the help. | ||
| 246 | 10:32 | And we find that if we keep girls in school later, | ||
| 247 | 10:34 | they'll stay in school until they're 16, | ||
| 248 | 10:36 | and won't get married if there's food in school. | ||
| 249 | 10:39 | Or if they get an extra ration of food | ||
| 250 | 10:41 | at the end of the week -- | ||
| 251 | 10:43 | it costs about 50 cents -- | ||
| 252 | 10:45 | will keep a girl in school, | ||
| 253 | 10:47 | and they'll give birth to a healthier child, | ||
| 254 | 10:49 | because the malnutrition is sent | ||
| 255 | 10:52 | generation to generation. | ||
| 256 | 10:55 | We know that there's boom and bust cycles of hunger. | ||
| 257 | 10:57 | We know this. | ||
| 258 | 10:59 | Right now on the Horn of Africa, we've been through this before. | ||
| 259 | 11:02 | So is this a hopeless cause? | ||
| 260 | 11:04 | Absolutely not. | ||
| 261 | 11:08 | I'd like to talk about what I call our warehouses for hope. | ||
| 262 | 11:11 | Cameroon, northern Cameroon, boom and bust cycles of hunger | ||
| 263 | 11:14 | every year for decades. | ||
| 264 | 11:16 | Food aid coming in every year | ||
| 265 | 11:19 | when people are starving during the lean seasons. | ||
| 266 | 11:23 | Well two years ago, | ||
| 267 | 11:25 | we decided, let's transform the model of fighting hunger, | ||
| 268 | 11:29 | and instead of giving out the food aid, we put it into food banks. | ||
| 269 | 11:32 | And we said, listen, | ||
| 270 | 11:34 | during the lean season, take the food out. | ||
| 271 | 11:36 | You manage, the village manages these warehouses. | ||
| 272 | 11:39 | And during harvest, put it back with interest, | ||
| 273 | 11:41 | food interest. | ||
| 274 | 11:43 | So add in five percent, 10 percent more food. | ||
| 275 | 11:47 | For the past two years, | ||
| 276 | 11:49 | 500 of these villages where these are | ||
| 277 | 11:51 | have not needed any food aid -- they're self-sufficient. | ||
| 278 | 11:53 | And the food banks are growing. | ||
| 279 | 11:55 | And they're starting school feeding programs for their children | ||
| 280 | 11:58 | by the people in the village. | ||
| 281 | 12:00 | But they've never had the ability | ||
| 282 | 12:02 | to build even the basic infrastructure | ||
| 283 | 12:04 | or the resources. | ||
| 284 | 12:06 | I love this idea that came from the village level: | ||
| 285 | 12:08 | three keys to unlock that warehouse. | ||
| 286 | 12:11 | Food is gold there. | ||
| 287 | 12:13 | And simple ideas can transform the face, | ||
| 288 | 12:16 | not of small areas, | ||
| 289 | 12:18 | of big areas of the world. | ||
| 290 | 12:20 | I'd like to talk about what I call digital food. | ||
| 291 | 12:24 | Technology is transforming | ||
| 292 | 12:27 | the face of food vulnerability | ||
| 293 | 12:29 | in places where you see classic famine. | ||
| 294 | 12:31 | Amartya Sen won his Nobel Prize | ||
| 295 | 12:33 | for saying, "Guess what, famines happen in the presence of food | ||
| 296 | 12:37 | because people have no ability to buy it." | ||
| 297 | 12:40 | We certainly saw that in 2008. | ||
| 298 | 12:42 | We're seeing that now in the Horn of Africa | ||
| 299 | 12:44 | where food prices are up 240 percent in some areas | ||
| 300 | 12:47 | over last year. | ||
| 301 | 12:49 | Food can be there and people can't buy it. | ||
| 302 | 12:51 | Well this picture -- I was in Hebron in a small shop, this shop, | ||
| 303 | 12:55 | where instead of bringing in food, | ||
| 304 | 12:58 | we provide digital food, a card. | ||
| 305 | 13:01 | It says "bon appetit" in Arabic. | ||
| 306 | 13:04 | And the women can go in and swipe | ||
| 307 | 13:07 | and get nine food items. | ||
| 308 | 13:09 | They have to be nutritious, | ||
| 309 | 13:11 | and they have to be locally produced. | ||
| 310 | 13:13 | And what's happened in the past year alone | ||
| 311 | 13:15 | is the dairy industry -- | ||
| 312 | 13:17 | where this card's used for milk and yogurt | ||
| 313 | 13:20 | and eggs and hummus -- | ||
| 314 | 13:22 | the dairy industry has gone up 30 percent. | ||
| 315 | 13:25 | The shopkeepers are hiring more people. | ||
| 316 | 13:27 | It is a win-win-win situation | ||
| 317 | 13:29 | that starts the food economy moving. | ||
| 318 | 13:32 | We now deliver food in over 30 countries | ||
| 319 | 13:35 | over cell phones, | ||
| 320 | 13:38 | transforming even the presence of refugees in countries, | ||
| 321 | 13:42 | and other ways. | ||
| 322 | 13:44 | Perhaps most exciting to me | ||
| 323 | 13:46 | is an idea that Bill Gates, Howard Buffett and others | ||
| 324 | 13:49 | have supported boldly, | ||
| 325 | 13:51 | which is to ask the question: | ||
| 326 | 13:53 | What if, instead of looking at the hungry as victims -- | ||
| 327 | 13:56 | and most of them are small farmers | ||
| 328 | 13:58 | who cannot raise enough food or sell food | ||
| 329 | 14:01 | to even support their own families -- | ||
| 330 | 14:03 | what if we view them as the solution, | ||
| 331 | 14:06 | as the value chain to fight hunger? | ||
| 332 | 14:08 | What if from the women in Africa | ||
| 333 | 14:13 | who cannot sell any food -- | ||
| 334 | 14:15 | there's no roads, there's no warehouses, | ||
| 335 | 14:17 | there's not even a tarp to pick the food up with -- | ||
| 336 | 14:20 | what if we give the enabling environment | ||
| 337 | 14:22 | for them to provide the food | ||
| 338 | 14:24 | to feed the hungry children elsewhere? | ||
| 339 | 14:27 | And Purchasing for Progress today is in 21 countries. | ||
| 340 | 14:30 | And guess what? | ||
| 341 | 14:32 | In virtually every case, | ||
| 342 | 14:34 | when poor farmers are given a guaranteed market -- | ||
| 343 | 14:37 | if you say, "We will buy 300 metric tons of this. | ||
| 344 | 14:40 | We'll pick it up. We'll make sure it's stored properly." -- | ||
| 345 | 14:43 | their yields have gone up two-, three-, fourfold | ||
| 346 | 14:46 | and they figure it out, | ||
| 347 | 14:48 | because it's the first guaranteed opportunity they've had in their life. | ||
| 348 | 14:51 | And we're seeing people transform their lives. | ||
| 349 | 14:54 | Today, food aid, our food aid -- | ||
| 350 | 14:57 | huge engine -- | ||
| 351 | 14:59 | 80 percent of it is bought in the developing world. | ||
| 352 | 15:02 | Total transformation | ||
| 353 | 15:04 | that can actually transform the very lives that need the food. | ||
| 354 | 15:08 | Now you'd ask, can this be done at scale? | ||
| 355 | 15:11 | These are great ideas, village-level ideas. | ||
| 356 | 15:14 | Well I'd like to talk about Brazil, | ||
| 357 | 15:16 | because I've taken a journey to Brazil over the past couple of years, | ||
| 358 | 15:19 | when I read that Brazil was defeating hunger | ||
| 359 | 15:21 | faster than any nation on Earth right now. | ||
| 360 | 15:23 | And what I've found is, | ||
| 361 | 15:25 | rather than investing their money in food subsidies | ||
| 362 | 15:27 | and other things, | ||
| 363 | 15:29 | they invested in a school feeding program. | ||
| 364 | 15:31 | And they require that a third of that food | ||
| 365 | 15:33 | come from the smallest farmers who would have no opportunity. | ||
| 366 | 15:36 | And they're doing this at huge scale | ||
| 367 | 15:38 | after President Lula declared his goal | ||
| 368 | 15:41 | of ensuring everyone had three meals a day. | ||
| 369 | 15:44 | And this zero hunger program | ||
| 370 | 15:48 | costs .5 percent of GDP | ||
| 371 | 15:51 | and has lifted many millions of people | ||
| 372 | 15:56 | out of hunger and poverty. | ||
| 373 | 15:58 | It is transforming the face of hunger in Brazil, | ||
| 374 | 16:01 | and it's at scale, and it's creating opportunities. | ||
| 375 | 16:04 | I've gone out there; I've met with the small farmers | ||
| 376 | 16:07 | who have built their livelihoods | ||
| 377 | 16:09 | on the opportunity and platform | ||
| 378 | 16:11 | provided by this. | ||
| 379 | 16:14 | Now if we look at the economic imperative here, | ||
| 380 | 16:16 | this isn't just about compassion. | ||
| 381 | 16:19 | The fact is studies show | ||
| 382 | 16:21 | that the cost of malnutrition and hunger -- | ||
| 383 | 16:24 | the cost to society, | ||
| 384 | 16:26 | the burden it has to bear -- | ||
| 385 | 16:28 | is on average six percent, | ||
| 386 | 16:30 | and in some countries up to 11 percent, | ||
| 387 | 16:32 | of GDP a year. | ||
| 388 | 16:35 | And if you look at the 36 countries | ||
| 389 | 16:38 | with the highest burden of malnutrition, | ||
| 390 | 16:40 | that's 260 billion lost from a productive economy | ||
| 391 | 16:43 | every year. | ||
| 392 | 16:45 | Well, the World Bank estimates | ||
| 393 | 16:47 | it would take about 10 billion dollars -- | ||
| 394 | 16:49 | 10.3 -- | ||
| 395 | 16:51 | to address malnutrition in those countries. | ||
| 396 | 16:53 | You look at the cost-benefit analysis, | ||
| 397 | 16:55 | and my dream is to take this issue, | ||
| 398 | 16:58 | not just from the compassion argument, | ||
| 399 | 17:01 | but to the finance ministers of the world, | ||
| 400 | 17:03 | and say we cannot afford | ||
| 401 | 17:05 | to not invest | ||
| 402 | 17:07 | in the access to adequate, affordable nutrition | ||
| 403 | 17:10 | for all of humanity. | ||
| 404 | 17:13 | The amazing thing I've found | ||
| 405 | 17:16 | is nothing can change on a big scale | ||
| 406 | 17:19 | without the determination of a leader. | ||
| 407 | 17:21 | When a leader says, "Not under my watch," | ||
| 408 | 17:24 | everything begins to change. | ||
| 409 | 17:26 | And the world can come in | ||
| 410 | 17:28 | with enabling environments and opportunities to do this. | ||
| 411 | 17:31 | And the fact that France | ||
| 412 | 17:33 | has put food at the center of the G20 | ||
| 413 | 17:35 | is really important. | ||
| 414 | 17:37 | Because food is one issue | ||
| 415 | 17:39 | that cannot be solved person by person, nation by nation. | ||
| 416 | 17:42 | We have to stand together. | ||
| 417 | 17:44 | And we're seeing nations in Africa. | ||
| 418 | 17:46 | WFP's been able to leave 30 nations | ||
| 419 | 17:49 | because they have transformed | ||
| 420 | 17:51 | the face of hunger in their nations. | ||
| 421 | 17:53 | What I would like to offer here is a challenge. | ||
| 422 | 17:58 | I believe we're living at a time in human history | ||
| 423 | 18:01 | where it's just simply unacceptable | ||
| 424 | 18:04 | that children wake up | ||
| 425 | 18:06 | and don't know where to find a cup of food. | ||
| 426 | 18:08 | Not only that, | ||
| 427 | 18:10 | transforming hunger | ||
| 428 | 18:12 | is an opportunity, | ||
| 429 | 18:14 | but I think we have to change our mindsets. | ||
| 430 | 18:17 | I am so honored to be here | ||
| 431 | 18:19 | with some of the world's top innovators and thinkers. | ||
| 432 | 18:23 | And I would like you to join with all of humanity | ||
| 433 | 18:27 | to draw a line in the sand | ||
| 434 | 18:29 | and say, "No more. | ||
| 435 | 18:31 | No more are we going to accept this." | ||
| 436 | 18:33 | And we want to tell our grandchildren | ||
| 437 | 18:35 | that there was a terrible time in history | ||
| 438 | 18:37 | where up to a third of the children | ||
| 439 | 18:39 | had brains and bodies that were stunted, | ||
| 440 | 18:41 | but that exists no more. | ||
| 441 | 18:43 | Thank you. | ||
| 442 | 18:45 | (Applause) |