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The following excerpt is from a March 5, 2010 article published by the UN News Centre. Click here to read the article in its entirety.
5 March 2010 – The United Nations, together with the Guatemalan Government and aid partners, today launched a $34 million appeal to counter food shortages affecting 2.7 million people living in the Central American country’s so-called ‘dry corridor,’ which even before last year’s drought had one of the highest rates of chronic malnutrition in the world.The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today’s appeal will complement national relief efforts and provide support for food, health, nutrition, agriculture and early recovery, as well as water, sanitation and hygiene projects for six months for some 680,000 people living in departments in the eastern section of the country, including the dry corridor – Jutiapa, Santa Rosa, Zacapa, Chiquimula, El Progreso and Baja Verapaz – and the neighbouring Izabal and Quiché.
Global acute malnutrition among children under the age of five in the dry corridor and the two neighbouring provinces is at 11 per cent, and at 13 per cent among women of child-bearing age. Both figures are above the emergency threshold of 10 per cent.
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The following excerpt is from a March 3, 2010 article published by Relief Web. To read the article in its entirety, click here.
Siriaco Mejia is an optimist. His friend Gloria Gonzalez says he is always smiling, even when he is in trouble. He just has a positive outlook.
But even Mejia was unable to put a favorable spin on his situation at harvest time in late 2009: after he’d planted his corn and beans in his field high above the languid Chixoy River, now flowing at a very low level, his crops had failed, owing to lack of rain. Most years he can grow 22 quintales (about 2,200 pounds) of corn. This year, Mejia says he got about a tenth of that.
“We could see the corn cobs, but when we opened them up, many were totally empty,” Mejia says, standing in his field. “We got almost nothing this year.”
…
This food shortage is occurring in a country of luxurious green that exports millions in sugar cane, pineapples, bananas, and coffee. Despite this abundance, poor Guatemalans, who are mostly indigenous Maya people, regularly face chronic food shortages. There is plenty of food in stores, but poor people can’t afford it.
Since the Spanish colonization of Central America, indigenous Maya people have been systematically moved off the most productive farmlands to arid areas and steep hillsides. In Mejia’s case, his community and several others were originally in the Chixoy River valley but were involuntarily relocated in the 1980s to make way for a hydroelectric dam. Most of the flattest, best land is used to grow export crops like coffee and sugar cane and, more recently, biofuel crops…
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Here is an article on recent support of Guatemala by the European Union (EU) to the tune of 33.8 million Euros.
“Guatemala City. The EU new initiative supports the five strategic objectives of the Strategic Plan for Food Security and Nutrition (PESAN, Plan Estratégico de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional) from 2009-2012 and will benefit the entire Guatemalan population, with particular attention to the most vulnerable rural population. The donation of the European Union for this program amounts to 33.8 million Euros (about 400 million quetzals).”
What I appreciate most about this EU effort is its focus on preventing future food crises rather than simply alleviating current problems in the form of food subsidies. The ultimate goal, of course, is sustainable food safety and nutrition in Guatemala, which is key to a larger public health initiative.
Please click here for the article.
The following excerpt is from a January 26, 2010 article published by The Latin American Herald Tribune. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
GUATEMALA CITY – The Guatemalan government will invest some 1.7 billion quetzales ($203 million) in 2001 [sic] to guarantee the country’s food security, officials said on Tuesday.
Several regions of Guatemala, especially the “dry corridor” in the east, were seriously affected in 2009 by a prolonged drought that caused the deaths of at least 54 children and affected 54,000 poor families.
The “Guatemala sin Hambre” (Guatemala Without Hunger) program, according to the secretary for Food and Nutritional Security, Lily Caravantes, will be directed by the Social Cohesion Council, presided over by first lady Sandra Torres de Colom.
Click here to read the rest of this article, or here to read more about the 2009/10 Food Crisis.
To link to the website (in Spanish) of Guatemala sin hambre, click here.
The following excerpt is from an August 27th, 2009 article published by the Economist. This article does a great job of highlighting some public health issues facing the nation. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
It is hardly one of Latin America’s poorest countries, but according to Unicef almost half of Guatemala’s children are chronically malnourished—the sixth-worst performance in the world. In parts of rural Guatemala, where the population is overwhelmingly of Mayan descent, the incidence of child malnutrition reaches 80%. A diet of little more than tortillas does permanent damage.
This chronic problem has become acute. Higher world prices for food have coincided with a recession-induced fall in money sent back from Guatemalans working in the United States (remittances equal 12% of Guatemala’s GDP). Drought in eastern Guatemala has made things worse still. Many families can scarcely afford beans, an important source of protein, and must sell eggs from their hens rather than feed them to their children.
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The following excerpt is from a January 10 article published by ECOWorld. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
BRUSSELS, Jan. 8 (UPI) — A drought-stricken section of Guatemala will receive almost $2 million in emergency humanitarian aid from the European Commission, officials say.
The EC’s Humanitarian Aid department has set aside the money to ensure some 20,000 residents have enough food, water and seeds.
The drought, caused by El Nino, has left parched a corridor of Guatemala bordering El Salvador and Honduras, an EC release said Friday.
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The following excerpt is from a January 6, 2010 article published by UN Dispatch. To view the article in its entirety, please click here.
In an interview with Guatemala’s Prensa Libre (Spanish), Irma Palma, the acting director of the World Food Programme field office, says that the WFP will be forced to send out a flash appeal in hopes of remedying a desperate food shortage in eastern Guatemala. A recent study completed for the UN Humanitarian Network concluded that 77 percent of families in effected areas would run out of food supplies in January or February. CERF funds that helped deliver 2,947 tons of food aid ran out in December.
Guatemala suffered its worst drought in 30 years last year, but, as Palma points out, lack of water is but one aspect of the problem. Food prices have increased while remittances dropped 20 percent in 2009, which can be directly linked to the economic situation in the U.S. Neighboring countries have faced similar issues, but Guatemala has the most dire shortage in the region.
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more about the 2009/10 Food Crisis.
The following excerpt is from a December 23, 2009 article published by Reuters AlertNet. To view the article in its entirety, please click here.
23 Dec 2009 21:40:00 GMT
Source: Action Against Hunger – USA
Susannah Masur
CHIQUIMULA, GUATEMALA Surveys carried out by Action Against Hunger / ACF International along the Guatemalan border with Honduras show widespread food insecurity and high levels of malnutrition in a region buffeted by the global recession and poor rainfalls. The global humanitarian group has intervened on an emergency and long-term basis, treating children with severe acute malnutrition and implementing nutrition, food security, and water and sanitation programs in the area.
The global humanitarian group announced today that 7.7 percent of children in the Corredor Seco region of Guatemala are acutely malnourished; another 2.4 percent have severe acute malnutrition, the more life-threatening form of the condition…
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The following excerpt is from a November 26, 2009 article from the Miami Herald. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
The U.S. has begun delivering food to Guatemalans suffering through a long drought.
By EZRA FIESER
Special to The Miami Herald
EL MOJON CHIQUIMULA, Guatemala — Nine-year-old Lide Ramirez and her little brother sat on an 18-pound bag of rice on a recent sunny morning, thinking that for the first time in months they would eat dinner.
“We usually have just some beans with a tortilla,” Lide said, guarding the bag of U.S.-donated white rice as if it were filled with gold. “On Sundays, we get to eat breakfast, too. But usually it’s just once at lunch.”
The rice was part of the U.S. government’s first distribution of food to families struggling through the country’s worst drought in three decades.
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By: Danilo Valladares
The following excerpt is from an article published on November 4, 2009 by Inter Press Service. To view the article in its entirety, please click here.
GUATEMALA CITY, Nov 4 (IPS) – Juan Manuel Ardón’s bones jut out and his hair is dull and thin: signs of severe malnutrition. He is so weak that he can hardly walk or talk, and the doctors say his weight and stature are those of a six-year-old, rather than 15-year-old, boy.
Juan Manuel is being cared for at the Nutritional Centre in the town of Jocotán, in the eastern Guatemalan province of Chiquimula, where he drags himself down the corridor like an old man in a little boy’s shriveled body.
But other little ones in this impoverished Central American country haven’t even made it to Juan Manuel’s age. At least 54 children have died of malnutrition so far this year in Guatemala, according to the General Directorate of Epidemiology, while 2.5 million people out of a total population of 13 million are facing a food crisis, according to United Nations figures.
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The following excerpt is from an October 15, 2009 article published by Alert Net. To view the article in its entirety, please click here.
Written by: Anastasia Moloney
BOGOTA (AlertNet) – Child malnutrition is costing Latin American governments billions of dollars every year and is slowing down economic growth in the region, United Nations’ research shows.
Economic losses due to long-term child malnutrition amounts to an average of up to three percent of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to U.N. studies focusing on more than 10 Latin American countries since 2007. ”There’s a clear relationship between child malnutrition economic loss, productivity and competitiveness,” said Alejandro Chicheri, WFP’s information officer for Latin America.
While the human cost of child malnutrition, such as physical and mental damage in children, has been well-documented, analysts are only just beginning to calculate the economic toll.
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“Hunger is a social and moral issue but it’s also an economic issue too,” said Chicheri. “Targeting malnutrition makes economic sense.” Getting Latin American governments to reposition chronic malnutrition as part of their long-term economic development plans is vital, and it may be the silver bullet that they need to break the hunger and poverty cycle, Chicheri said.
Click here to read the rest of the article, here to read more about the 2009 Food Crisis, or here to read more about Economics & Guatemala.
The following excerpt is from an October 14, 2009 article published by Reuters. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
BENTONVILLE, Ark., Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — The Walmart Foundation announced today a donation of $350,000 in disaster relief for people impacted by recent droughts in Guatemala, flooding in southern India and natural disasters in Southeast Asia.
“At Walmart, we are dedicated to providing support for communities around the world, especially when they need us the most,” said Margaret McKenna, president, Walmart Foundation. “Given the scale and devastating impact of these occurrences, we want to do our part to help in these tough times.”
…
In Guatemala, a $100,000 donation to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will go toward purchasing and distributing therapeutic foods to fight acute malnutrition in the impacted areas. The donation will provide 95 tons of Vitacereal(TM), which provides essential micronutrients that are lacking in rural indigenous diets but play an important role in growth and protection against disease. The funds will support 31,000 beneficiaries to reduce chronic malnutrition in the most affected areas of the country.
“The WFP thanks Walmart for this contribution to the Vitacereal program in Guatemala, which is in critical need of funding and supplies,” said Willem Van Milink, WFP representative in Guatemala. “With this contribution, Walmart is ensuring nutritional assistance specifically for pregnant women as well as young children. This will help with their development as well as break the intergenerational cycle of hunger and poverty.”
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The following excerpt is from an October 7, 2009 article published by Relief Web to read the article in its entirety, please click here.
OAS, PADF Respond to Government’s Plea for Food
Washington, D.C. Oct. 5, 2009 – Four cargo containers with desperately needed food will be sent to Guatemala’s drought-stricken regions to help stave off malnutrition and starvation due to the worst drought in this country in 30 years, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) announced.
“This grave situation becomes even more compelling because young children are the first victims of malnutrition,” says Assistant Secretary General of the OAS Ambassador Albert Ramdin. “We knew we needed to act right away. The OAS contribution of $20,000 will enable PADF to mobilize more than $250,000 in relief for the drought victims.”
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The following excerpt is from an October 4, 2009 article published by The Miami Herald. To view the article in its entirety, please click here.
BY TRENTON DANIEL
JALAPA, Guatemala — Some children check in. Others don’t get to.
Those who make it to the Nicolasa Cruz hospital do so because a parent cobbled together enough money. Others leave because the cash ran out. And others avoid the general hospital altogether because their parents can’t afford the pennies it takes to travel here.
These tales are part of the larger national discussion that has emerged in Guatemala after 14 children died in July of malnutrition and related causes. The worst drought in 30 years in Guatemala’s dry corridor, where the city and department of Jalapa are located, killed almost 80 percent of the country’s crops and depleted the food supply of subsistence farmers. President Alvaro Colom announced a “public calamity.”
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The following excerpt is from an October 1, 2009 article from the Latin American Herald Tribune. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
GUATEMALA CITY – Some 208,723 tons of white corn have been lost this year in Guatemala as a result of a prolonged drought, the Agriculture Ministry said Wednesday.
A report by the ministry said the value of the lost grain is estimated at 146.1 million quetzales ($17.5 million).
It said most of the crop failures occurred in the so-called “dry corridor,” made up of the provinces of Jalapa, Jutiapa, El Progreso, Zacapa, Chiquimula and Baja Verapaz….
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The following excerpt is from a September 30, 2009 article published by the BBC. To view the article in its entirety, please click here.
By Alberto Najar
BBC Mundo
The political crisis in Honduras is having a crippling effect on trade in Central America, with Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica losing millions of dollars of trade every day…
The ongoing political deadlock in Honduras has come at a high price for Guatemalan businesses.
Javier Zepeda, president of the country’s Chamber of Industry, says: “When the border is closed, our trade with Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama is affected, because we can only go via El Salvador.”
…It is yet another blow for Guatemala, where a state of disaster was declared two weeks ago because of a drought which has caused chronic malnutrition among the population.
Click here to read the rest of the article, here to read more about Economics & Guatemala, or here to read about the 2009 food crisis.
The following excerpt is from a September 29, 2009 article published in the Miami Herald. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
A record-breaking drought in Guatemala — coupled with higher food prices and a drop in remittances — is raising concerns that malnutrition could be spreading in the Central American nation.
BY TRENTON DANIEL
DEVISADERO, Guatemala — Victoria Lopez cradles her 2-year-old granddaughter Jennifer, whose chubby cheeks, bloated legs and stunted growth make her look much younger than healthy children her age.
“She just sits there — she doesn’t move,” Lopez, 39, said as she rocked the toddler in her arms. “She’s two and not even walking yet.”
Jennifer’s condition is not unique among children in the hills of Guatemala’s so-called dry corridor along the Pacific. The country’s worst drought in 30 years has destroyed 80 percent of the region’s crops and claimed the lives of more than a dozen children so far this year.
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The following excerpt is from a September 25, 2009 article published by Relief Web. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
MEXICO CITY, Sep 25, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Italy donated 400,000 euros (588,000 U.S. dollars) to Guatemala on Friday to help a food-buying program run by the World Food Program (WFP), a Guatemalan official said.
According to news reaching here, Willem Van Milink, the Program’s Guatemalan representative, said WFP would use the money to buy 530 metric tons of Vitacereal, a product made from corn and soy and enriched with vitamins and minerals.
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The following excerpt is from an article published by Reuters/AlertNet on September 24, 2009. To read the article in its entirety, please click here. To view the report on which the article is based, please click here.
As the leaders of the rich world meet in Pittsburgh this weekend to discuss the economic crisis, Christian Aid launches a report highlighting the way in which derisory tax rates deprive poor countries of billions in lost revenue.
Developing country governments have for decades charged multinational companies seeking to exploit their natural resources very low tax rates, under pressure from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Undermining the Poor focuses on the tax policies of three countries in Latin America – Guatemala, Peru and Honduras.
Guatemala is a particularly stark example of a country suffering real hardship because of poor taxation policies. While the average tax take for Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) countries was 35 per cent of GDP, in Guatemala in 2008 it was just 11.3 per cent.
‘Even as the food crisis deepens in Guatemala, much needed revenue which could be used to alleviate malnutrition is being lost through the woefully inadequate tax rates charged to companies mining precious minerals,’ said Ms Kumar.
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The following excerpt is from an article published on September 23, 2009, by The World Food Programme. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
Wanting to see the impact of hunger with her own eyes, the Grammy award-winning artist recently traveled to Guatemala and met some of the beneficiaries of WFP’s nutrition programmes there. For Aguilera, it was an unforgettable experience.
GUATEMALA CITY — Christina Aguilera just wanted to hug the young woman she met in a Guatemalan village: Concepción, 25 years old, her little daughter clinging to her legs, a second baby on the way.
Concepción was standing in a dirt floor hut, smoke filling the room from a wooden stove. She has no job, no money, her husband has just left her. She said the only food she receives is from WFP…
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The following excerpt is from a September 22, 2009 article published in The Tiawan News. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
Taipei, Sept. 22 (CNA) Taiwan will donate US$500,000 in relief aid to Guatemala, one of its allies in Latin America, to help alleviate a food shortage caused by drought, an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said Tuesday.
The donation will be handed over to the Guatemalan government by the Republic of China Embassy there for humanitarian purposes, said Lin Cheng-hui, deputy director-general of the MOFA Bureau of Central and South American Affairs.
Click here to read the rest of this article, or here to read other articles about the 2009 Guatemalan food crisis.
This excerpt is from an article published on September 22, 2009 by The HuffingtonPost, and written by Josette Sheeran. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
The perfect storm for the world’s most vulnerable is back — and with a vengeance. Now bad weather and soaring food prices have been joined by a financial crisis sucking the economic life out of poor communities — and urgent hunger is the result….
…In Guatemala, children have already started dying. In rural areas, tens of thousands of families can no longer afford to eat. Malnutrition rates are rising among the very young, and poverty has become a killer. The president just made a plea for help, calling it a national calamity.
To read the rest of the article please click here.
The following excerpt is from a September 18, 2009 article published by AlertNet. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
Guatemala is experiencing a worsening food crisis in the so-called dry corridor in the east and northeast of the country.
According to the Guatemalan authorities, 91 per cent of children there are suffering from malnutrition. This is three times higher than the levels reached in 2007 and 2008. Between 60 and 80 per cent of crops have been lost. Approximately 17,445 families in 194 communities are at high risk….
To read the rest of this article, please click here.
Source: International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
The following excerpt is from a September 15, 2009 article published by Relief Web . To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
The International Federation’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) is a source of un-earmarked money created by the Federation in 1985 to ensure that immediate financial support is available for Red Cross and Red Crescent response to emergencies. The DREF is a vital part of the International Federation’s disaster response system and increases the ability of national societies to respond to disasters.
CHF 30,000 (USD 28,907 or EUR 19,832) has been allocated from the Federation’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support the Guatemalan Red Cross (GRC) in performing assessments in the high risk areas where the population’s livelihoods have been lost.
This operation is expected to be implemented over 3 months, and will be completed by 11 December 2009….
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The following excerpt is from a September 14, 2009 article published on BBC.com. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
Guatemala has been hit by severe food shortages, with some 54,000 families living in the east of the country facing a critical situation.
President Alvaro Colom last week declared a “state of public calamity” to try to mobilise funding to tackle severe food shortages in the country.
Lida Escobar is a field monitor for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) in Guatemala. She sent this update on the situation there to BBCMundo.com:
“In the eastern city of Jalapa I was astonished by what I saw. There were many many children with severe malnutrition problems. We found 22 children with marasmus and kwashiorkor [two nutrient deficiency diseases] in the hospital…”
To read the rest of this article, please click here.
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