“We’re recording for history – this [panel and audience] could be the game changer on global hunger,” said the energetic moderator, Femi Oke, an international journalist.
That’s a tall order given that nearly 811 million people worldwide are hungry today, and 45 million people are on the brink. By the panel’s end, Oke upgraded the power of the collective, saying, “This is not a panel, it’s a movement.”
Part of the new SXSW 2050 track geared toward long-range innovation, the panel aimed to share technological advancements in the fight against hunger. Panelists Bernhard Kowatsch and Elizabeth Nyamayaro are with the United Nations World Food Programme, which was awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. Nyamayaro is an award-winning political scientist and senior adviser to the UN; she experienced near-death starvation as a child in her Zimbabwean village. Kowatsch is the head of the WFP’s Innovation Accelerator, which sources, supports, and scales technology to solve hunger. They use blockchain and retina scanners to streamline cash cards for refugees, and other biometrics, for example. During the panel, they suggested the audience download the ShareTheMeal crowdfunding smartphone app that “enables users to make small donations to specific WFP projects and to track its progress.” It took less than 30 seconds to donate.
There’s plenty of food to feed the world’s population, and organizers can drum up donations – maybe even convince a certain Austin-based billionaire to donate the $7 billion needed to save these lives – but “the thing we don’t have is all of us.”
Heart-wrenching stories are part of this conversation, and the third panelist, Skye Fitzgerald (Spin Film), does not sugar coat it. Hoping to build empathy and raise awareness, Fitzgerald shared individuals’ stories that have “haunted” him, particularly in his most recent work, the Oscar-nominated “The Humanitarian Trilogy: HUNGER WARD” that documents the effect of the war and famine in Yemen. He showed the audience a photo of a 6-year-old who weighed 15 pounds, and explained that, “Children in Yemen are not starving. Children in Yemen are being starved.” In today’s bifurcated Yemen, a child dies every 75 seconds as the “United States supports the Saudi-led blockade in the North,” which prevents aid from reaching civilians.
Politics can eliminate roadblocks, sometimes literally, and hunger is everybody’s responsibility. The panel also drove home that hunger is not new, but more importantly, it is still extremely current. “Holodomor” is a trending topic, a reference to the “Terror-Famine” that emphasizes the intentional, man-made, and strategic causes that starved millions of Ukrainian civilians to death in 1932-33. And it’s happening again right now.
The root causes of hunger – poverty, conflict, climate change, supply chain disruptions, etc. – disproportionately affect the developing world, but the crisis is raging in the United States and other “developed” nations across the globe. Food waste was a large discussion point not only for the obvious, but because it is one of the largest contributors to the greenhouse gasses worsening the climate crisis.
In the closing calls to action, Fitzgerald said, “Pay attention and believe that no matter where you come from, your toolbox matters too.” He also called on the audience to engage their government representatives to pass the Yemen Wars Powers Resolution. “Food is a human right, and yet so many people don’t have access,” said Nyamayaro. “We want you to leave this room inspired to do something because you can. There’s an African proverb that says, ‘If you think you are too small to make a difference, spend the night in a room with a mosquito.’”
If the panel lacked anything, it was time: Folks with questions were lined up throughout the panel, and afterward the discussion continued as a huge crowd gathered around the panelists for an impromptu 1:1 post-panel Q&A.
This article appears in Guide to SXSW 2022.