James Morris, Executive Director , World Food Programme
Remarks at the World Food Programme Briefing - The HIV/AIDS Nutrition Crisis

April 16, 2003

James Morris, Executive Director of the United Nations' World Food Programme gives an update on the need for soy foods to help combat HIV/AIDS in Africa. (Photo Credit: Agritalk)

Thank you Criss and Dwain.

I really didn’t start to think in great detail about my connection with you all until I was walking over here this morning. I am absolutely entitled to be here, because my wife is a soybean farmer in Judyville, Illinois. We have a hundred acres there, just across the border from Indiana. We farm with a couple of farms in Indiana, three together; we are an Illinois soybean farming family. Politicians would say, “That’s a stretch Jim.”

May I thank Congressman Davis who’s been a great friend of the World Food Programme and hungry people all over the world. I also pay my respect to Congressman Hyde. I testified before his committee a few days ago and what a great friend he is as well as Speaker Hastert and Senator Durbin is actually on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the World Food Programme. We  have a half a dozen members of the Senate, he would be one of our best friends. And we’re grateful and please give him our good wishes.

This is the most extraordinary time in the history of the World Food Programme. I sort of come out of a background of business and philanthropy.  Had six wonderful years working with Dick Lugar when he was Mayor of Indianapolis.  Sort of headed to an early retirement and had this opportunity to go lead this World Food Programme in Rome.  Didn’t know much about it. But I can tell you this is now the largest humanitarian program in the world. The largest program of the United Nations and really quite a remarkable asset, that belongs to the world. Last year we fed about 80 million people in 80 countries. We worked very hard at targeting our assistance to the most vulnerable people in a location. Eighty percent of our work is in response to emergencies.

We wish it was more balanced in investments and traditional development sorts of things. But, the challenges before us are essentially unprecedented. Iraq has drawn the world’s focus, understandably, the last few weeks. We’re getting ready to feed 27 million people in Iraq. We’ve, this will be a logistical challenge, unprecedented. There are few countries in the world where the population depends more on its Central Government for food supply than Iraq. Sixty percent of the population of Iraq get 100% of its food from the government. And 100% of the population gets most of its food from the government. They have a public distribution system that will utilize 44,000 points of distribution to distribute the food.

We’ve essentially managed the program in the North with the Kurds and overseen the program in the center and southern parts of the country. But for the next six months I suspect it’s gong to be our responsibility to see that 480,000 tons of food a month will be moved into Iraq through Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan and Kuwait. And we’ll use about 10,000 trucks to do that. We’ve already started moving food into the north from Turkey and about to move food from Jordan. We also run the United Nation’s Humanitarian Air Service and we do all of the logistical work for all of the UN agencies.

So, the next six months will be a challenge unprecedented for an organization like ours. We’ll mover 340 international staff into the area and have probably about 3,000 local staff. We’ve had 850 employees in Iraq over the last year. We moved the international staff out and will shortly move them all back in obviously. 1.6 million metric tons of food will be used at a price of $1.3 billion, and we’ll raise that from some proceeds that were already committed through the oil for food program, but mostly through donor contributions. And you should be so proud, as I am, to be an American. This country of ours is the most generous that the world has ever known.

In 2001, the US provided sixty percent of the support for the World Food Programme, fifty percent in 2002. And it’s through the productive genius of American agriculture and the instinctive generosity of the American people that we’re able to do our work. And you should know also that the United States of America does an extraordinary job of separating the humanitarian issues from the political issues.

The US is the largest provider of support to the people, food support to the people of North Korea, to the people of Chechnya, to the Palestinians and then list just goes on and on forever. The North Korean situation is incredibly difficult. Working there is unlike anything an American can comprehend, if you haven’t been there. But, we’ve been feeding four million children, 6 ½ million people, a third of the population and we’ve done a nutrition survey with UNICEF that compares the health of children under the age of seven, 1998 to 2002. And we have dramatically reduced the percentage of under weight children from about 60% to about 20% in the last 4 years. And the same with the stunting and the wasting measurements. Remarkable progress. And to think that our country has made this happen by enlarge with all of the political turmoil going on at a different level. It says something pretty special about the United States.

As you look at Iraq, Iraq is a very wealthy country. And hopefully the wealth will soon be used in such a way that Iraq can take care of itself. The issue in Iraq, while it commands all of the public attention right now. When you look at the issues in Africa you sort of ask yourself why do we, why isn’t there a comparable outrage with conditions in Africa.

The issues in Africa today are mind boggling. 200 million, 200 million Africans poorly nourished. 40 million Africans severely, chronically malnourished. 15 million Africans in the south, Swazeeland, Mozambique, Malawie, Zambia, Zimbabwe, critically at risk, loss of life. Because of the generosity of the US that’s been averted for the time being. But, the convergence of bad weather and drought, with tough and often times bad government, leadership and decisions together with very serious health issues, primarily HIV/AIDS, has converged on a part of the world and the results are catastrophic.

You go up into the horn of Africa, Ethiopia and Eritrea, AIDS issue not quite so serious, but very serious still. No rain last year and you’ve got 15 million people at risk. You have great turmoil in the Ivory Coast and Liberia, 4 to 5 million internally displaced people moving around with all of the violence and conflict. Another drought in the western part of the Sahel, Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, Cape Verde, a million people at risk again. And then very tough situations in Angola. By June we’ll be feeding 2.2 million people in Angola.

And Angola is once again a very wealthy environment. And we need to help them move through the recovery, coming out of the 40 years of conflict and we need to help maintain the peace.

But Angola is a country that has the oil and diamonds, etc. to stand on its own. But, the incredible long term influence of land mines in Angola. Some would estimate 7-800,000 land mines, unidentified as to location. We run the airlines there and we’re flying in and out of all these small airports, not airports, landing strips, day in and day out, it’s a terrifying sort of thing. You then come back through the Great Lakes, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda  and the Congo, 40 million people seriously at risk, including about 2 million refugees and 6 million internally displaced people. And the quality of those lives and the tough issues that they pose overwhelming.

Kofi Annan asked me to be his special envoy for Southern Africa and I’ve been spending a lot of time there. Six countries that I’ve mentioned. Let me just talk a minute or two about the impact of HIV/AIDS. In the west we sort of view HIV/AIDS as a problem, health issue in a particular part of the community, the drug culture, the homosexual community.

May I tell you that the HIV/AIDS issue in Africa is pervasive. And it, a country like Zimbabwe, 34% of the adult population is infected. A place like Botswana, 40% of the adult population is infected. Botswana is a small population country. Relatively affluent. But I mean the numbers are staggering. Seven million people who work in agriculture in this part of the world have lost their lives to HIV/AIDS. And over the next 15 years it will be twice that many. The impact on families , on culture, on agriculture productivity is enormous. I have been so overwhelmed, overtaken, I can hardly get it out of my mind what this has done to children. Eleven million children in sub-Saharan Africa are orphaned because mom and/or dad have died of HIV/AIDS.

A country like Zimbabwe that has 14 ½ million population, 780,000 children orphaned because mom and/or dad have died of HIV/AIDS. Ten percent of the families in this part of the world are now headed by a child. Fifty percent of the families are now headed by someone in their up 60’s or 70’s. It’s not uncommon to see a grandmother taking care of twenty children in a very small house and she has nothing. And all of her children have lost their lives to HIV/AIDS and she is there, in her 70’s responsible for 20 children. And she may point to her childs grave in the corner of the real estate.

I visited a few days ago in Zambia with a family of five, headed by a 14 year old girl. The 14 year old girl is the same size as my 7 year old grand daughter. Her mom and dad both dead because of HIV/AIDS. She’s now responsible for the family. Robbed of her childhood and responsibilities that are absolutely overwhelming. I visited with the president of Zambia, and he said Jim, the most important thing you can do for me is to train teachers. I lost 2000 teachers in Zambia last year to HIV/AIDS and I was able to only replace half of them. Half the kids in Zambia no longer go to school.

The impact of this is mind boggling. What this has done to the human resources of the governmental infrastructure in health, agriculture and education., once again overwhelming. There is virtually no medical infrastructure left. Doctors, the nurses, the pharmacists either lost their lives or have left. If you talk to the people at WHO, they would still tell you that hunger is the single most important health issue in the world today. And if you talk to the people at UN AIDS, they would tell you that food is the most important drug in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Never thought of food as a drug but, their words, not mine.

We have changed our way of doing business. Maybe a year from now in Southern Africa the issue will no longer be a food crisis. But the HIV/AIDS crisis will be there for a long period of time. And we’ve told the UN family that they now need to look at all of their programs through a new set of lenses. The HIV/AIDS lens, the impact on women and the impact on children. Women now are 58% of the infected people in southern Africa. The impact on women is overwhelming. Women do 80% of the farming, they’re expected to produce the food, prepare the food, give the care the sick members of their family and by enlarge so often they are without energy to do this work. The impact on women is extraordinary.

People who are infected and are able to have medicine need to have nutrition and plenty of food so they take the medicine, not on an empty stomach. People who have good nutrition are able to have a higher degree of resistance for the opportunistic diseases that usually get people if they have HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, polio, etc. We have changed our food basket to a place where HIV/AIDS is extra serious by adding about 500 calories a day and dramatically increasing the protein content.

And that’s where you all come in. The CSB, the corn, soybean mixtures that we often distribute or that we add as a nutrition supplement to our regular food distribution program is key to providing the food who are infected require. And once again the United States government is very generous in helping us address this issue. But, I must say that it is an issue that if we are receiving this amount of support with this particular product, it needs to go to here. We probably used about 150,000 metric tons of soy products last year. And it needs to be substantially greater than that. Think about this. The life expectancy in Mozambique has gone from above 50 and it’s headed to 27. The life expectancy in Zambia and Zimbabwe, once again above 50 is headed to 34.

This is the most extraordinary humanitarian crisis in the world today in my judgement. The millions, tens of millions of people at risk. And what this has done to children. When a child finds herself or himself in a predicament, or set of conditions, absolutely not of their own making, the world does have some responsibility for their health, their education and be sure that they are fed. They can fend for themselves in this world. One of the most important things that we do is our school feeding program. And I see a smile on a face or two, you just wouldn’t expect that I would come and not make this pitch because it is so important and in some respects the most important thing we do.

Dwain mentioned there are 800 million hungry people in the world. 300 million hungry children, half of them don’t go to school. Most of the….half are young girls. And we’ve been working hard to deliver a meal through a school system as an incentive for a child to come to school. And once the child’s in school we can work with WHO and distribute for virtually nothing health remedies for problems like worms.

The child, half of them are infected with worms. The worm is consuming half of the nutritional value of what the child is eating. For thirty cents a year we can get rid of that. For $35 a year, twenty cents a day we can feed a child. It is the single, most powerful leveraged investment the world can make. And feeding children is a way of getting them to school. See what it did for our country, the school lunch program or what it has done in Japan.

I’m grateful, I had just the most wonderful surprise last week. Canada said Jim, we’re gonna give you 75 million Canadian dollars over the next three years to feed school children in Africa. Switzerland made a new commitment in the last two or three weeks. Bob Dole and George McGovern have been the most interesting pair leading this effort. They’ve led the legislation  through the Senate. Senator Roberts of Kansas and Senator Durbin of Illinois and others, powerfully supportive of this and virtually 100% support throughout the Senate to support this effort.

The top goal of the United Nations in the millenium development goals is to cut hunger and poverty in half by 2015. And my own view is that the best way to do this is focus on these 300 million children. And that would be getting it very close to cutting it in half. It also is the best vehicle for AIDS education, especially for young girls. The behavior of the young girl who’s educated in Africa is all together different than the behavior of a girl who doesn’t have the chance to go to school. And food’s the key to that.

So, my wife says I could give you the thesis sentence and I always finish with full volume and she says the thesis sentence is adequate. The good news is she’s not here today. So, I’m grateful to this wonderful country of ours for its generosity and I’m grateful to the agricultural community. You never know what you do means to the rest of the world. But the rest of the world needs alittle extra help right now. It will pay off, whether you look at it from once again from the security point of view or the economic point of view or just a humanitarian point of view, it is the right thing to do. Thank you.

James Morris Question/Answer Session

Q. Martin Ross, Illinois Farm Week

President Bush unveiled a $5 billion AIDS in Africa initiative in his State of Union address. Currently, we're going through some budget concerns. Congressman Davis told me that the budget language is there. What is the potential role of this program? How can it help the World Food Programme continue its efforts in Africa?

A. The President's commitment in the State of the Union address served to inspire the rest of the world to begin to think about this issue. There have been virtually no contributions for several years to AIDS global fund. As I recall he made a commitment of $15 billion over several years for this. I cannot tell you how that money will be used. I had a good visit with the President four or five weeks ago where we talked about these issues and the issue of AIDS especially as it relates to children in Africa.

I believe this President is a great humanitarian and I think at the end of the day this man really cares about children and people at risk. And we talked about the tie between food and HIV/AIDS much like we just did. And my sense is that most of the, there's been a lot of struggle in the world on how to respond to AIDS. Do we focus on prevention? Do we focus on care, home-base care? Do we focus on trying to find research and medical response? Some of the anti-retro viral drugs are now available at about 20% of what they might have cost two years ago. By-and-large produced elsewhere around the world, and not in the US for that amount of money.

But, my hope is that both the global fund, and I think the President, I don't know that these dollars were committed to the global fund. Although the US was responsible for starting the global fund and Tommy Thompson is now the Chair of the Global Fund. My hope is that a piece of this will be available for food research and to be thoughtful of how we do a better job of home care and we essentially deliver the food through home care programs. It's a tough question, knowing precisely how to respond to this. We've changed our therapeutic and supplemental feeding program for women throughout Africa.

We've changed, we've put heavy emphasis on feeding children who are children of HIV/AIDS positive people. Sort of the best medicine for the mother who's infected is to know that her child is going to be taken care of. And it makes all the difference in the world. And then we've been working very, Africa is not unlike Chicago or Indianapolis or wherever, you see these remarkable people working in neighborhoods and communities who have formed very small community organizations and to help kids and to help people at risk. Well, there are and equal number of remarkable people in Africa who have built very small community, non-governmental organizations to take care of children. And I must say that the work of the religious community, the Catholic Church has taken its beats about the head the last couple of years, but the role of the Catholic Church around the world is extraordinary in doing this kind of work. And the same for other faith based organizations. So, there's a better answer to your question than the one I just gave you but that's the best I can do.

Q. Martin Ross, Illinois Farm Week

Basically, I've talked to individuals with a couple of companies, ADM, Cargill, etc. who have been working with trying to devise food products that meet the needs of some of these countries, soy based food products. And I know I guess it's important to work these products into indigenous diets to introduce these into foods that, U of I has been doing work with developing flat breads with particular proteins. What's the importance of these further processed, further developed soy food products in, I guess to assimilation of HIV/AIDS beneficial diets?

A. Well, it's very important. We have a heavy focus of trying to strengthen the nutritional value of what we provide the person at risk. Be it a pregnant mother, or lactating mother nursing a child or the direct feeding of a child. We provide a huge amount of fortified biscuits to feed a child. A little package of biscuits. Actually, you can put enough nutrition in the biscuit package to take care of the basic needs of the child for the day. And we have a number of blended products that we've been using in Bangladesh and all sorts of places around the world. So, the research that ADM and Cargill and others have been doing is very important. In the long run, the objective needs to be to find ways for African agriculture to be productive and to be in the export business itself. And the work we do needs to be culturally accepted. On occasion if things are just in an utter catastrophe and people traditionally eat maize or wheat all and all we have is rice, we'll make that available.

But we work very hard at being sure that what we provide is in the best tradition of the area. And we try to buy locally. Probably 20-25% of what we purchase or what we use we buy locally. It's very difficult to do, because sometimes we can destroy the market and the pricing system and often times we're doing work, most times where there is not much food available.

So all of these issues come into play. But, the issue of technology around the world in your industry, I have good friends at Dow in Indianapolis and we they knew I was going to this they invited me out for a visit and they started talking about genetically modified food and biotech issues. And they said this going to be something you're going to struggle with. And I, I didn't know how to react. But I must say I have been consumed with the issue. There is so much misunderstanding in parts of Africa about the use of genetically modified, biotech food, things that all of us eat every day and know are perfectly safe. But as the lady said, don't tell me how I feel, I know how I feel. The feeling is one of misunderstanding and fright. We've been able to work through the issue in most places. In Zambia, we've not been able to work through the issue. We'd been serving GM food to refugees in Zambia for seven or eight years and suddenly this crisis brought this whole thing to a head and they asked us to take the stuff out. Now, they were very slow in getting us the export permit to take it out and it led to a hullabaloo of people breaking into the warehouses because they were hungry and they wanted the food. But we essentially moved it to Malawi and Zimbabwe and they ate it comfortably. But, it's, this issue of technology, the west and there are trade issues here that you all understand better than I do, but we've got to be very thoughtful about how we sort of make our success available to the rest of the world.

End of comments from Mr. Morris