Global Policy Forum

By George McGovern

In this partisan season of American politics it may be welcome relief to consider an initiative taken by former Senator Bob Dole, the Republican presidential nominee of 1996, and me, the Democratic presidential nominee of 1972. I refer to our proposal that the United Nations commit itself to a nutritious lunch every day for every schoolchild in the world.

Most of the advanced countries provide lunches to their schoolchildren. But in Asia, Africa and Latin America an estimated 170 million school-age boys and girls receive no meals during school hours. Another 130 million school-age youngsters in these countries do not attend school and are condemned to lives of illiteracy. Most are girls, because of the favoritism toward males in much of the Third World.

In the 30 developing countries where the United Nations has experimented with pilot school lunches, enrollments doubled within a year. As parents learn that the meager family food budget can be expanded by at least one good meal a day for their children, they quickly take steps to make sure that their sons and daughters are in school. Children who used to be too lethargic to walk to the village school and then sit through six hours of instruction now eagerly look forward to the experience. Academic performance, enjoyment of learning, athletic ability and overall health improve dramatically when empty stomachs are filled with nutritious meals.

UN studies in six developing countries reveal that illiterate girls have an average of six children each. These girls begin marriage as early as 11, 12 or 13 years of age and may have five, six, or seven children before they are 18. In contrast, girls who go to school marry later, practice greater restraint in spacing births and have an average of 2.9 children. More mature, educated girls are also better equipped to rear their children.

When I was the director of the U.S. Food for Peace Program during the presidency of John F. Kennedy, the dean of the University of Georgia told me that the American school lunch program had done more for the development of the Southern states than any other federal program. That good Georgia dean was the first individual to get me excited about school lunches in America and around the world. I'm still excited about this idea 40 years later. I want nothing less than a good nutritious lunch every day for every child in the world. If we can reach that goal, we will literally transform life on our planet. I hope and pray that my UN colleagues in Rome and the governments at home will give reality to this dream.

This is something that we can do and that we ought to do because it is morally right. But it is also something that will benefit all of us in strengthening the health, stability and productivity of our world. It will, as a welcome by-product, contribute to the income of hard-pressed farmers and ranchers. At the recent Group of Eight meeting in Japan, President Bill Clinton committed the United States to provide $300 million to school lunches abroad by asking Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman to purchase this amount of surplus farm produce for use overseas in school lunches. Other countries such as Canada, Australia, France and Argentina could also contribute farm surpluses to the program.

Countries without food surpluses could contribute cash or transportation or administrative personnel. Catherine Bertini, the vigorous American director of the UN World Food Program, is aware that the major burden of administering a global school feeding program will fall to her agency. She and a highly competent international staff are preparing for that task. To reach preschool-age children and pregnant and nursing mothers, there is a highly successful program in the United States that Senator Dole and I along, with the late Senator Hubert Humphrey, were instrumental in starting in the 1970s. WIC (Women, Infants, Children) provides food and counseling for needy young mothers and their children through the age of 5. I would like to see the United Nations adopt and direct this program worldwide. Like the school lunch program, this could be managed through the schools with the help of voluntary agencies and local parent-teacher associations.

There are 100 million needy young mothers and preschool infants and children in the developing world. Added to the 300 million needy school-age children, that makes a total of 400 million. The World Food Summit in Rome attended by 180 nations in 1996 set a target of halving the number of hungry people, from 800 million to 400 million, by the year 2015. We should then be able to wipe out hunger among the remaining hungry people of the globe by the year 2030. To borrow a phrase from Ecclesiastes, can there be any higher ''purpose under the heaven'' than feeding all God's children the world around?

Ambassador McGovern, the former senator and Democratic presidential nominee, is the U.S. representative to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

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