Cambodian Food Depravation

Due to a shortage in funding the World Food Program, part of the UN, has recently announce it will be no longer able to feed 450,000 Cambodian children with their daily breakfast. This will lead many of these children unable to continue to attend school as many students attend school to receive their breakfast. It is however unlikely they will starve. Some believe this to be a global food crisis which will significantly cripple the poor Cambodian children.

The failure of this program ends its eight year long success in Cambodia. The program has now started a worldwide effort to raise 500 million dollars. In a time where the United States is investing massive amounts of money on a war many feel is unnecessary it seems investing in this program could be beneficial to the reputation of US Foreign Policy and would not risk upsetting many other states. The criticism is what if any benefits will America receive and the answer is none. Cambodia's rice production is limited and not nearly enough for impoverished people to afford. 

In January of 2007 the program stopped for about a month and school attendance dropped 10 percent, according to the New York Times. Considering the norms and ideals of American Society it would seem that aiding for Cambodians should be increased, as education is stressed. Now this global crisis is in the spotlight due to this recent announcement. With the depletion of rice supplies in Cambodia the population of those unable to afford food will continue to increase potentially causing more starvation. 

For 2007 the US Foreign Policy budget was around 449 billion dollars alone on on our defense department. It seems that we should have the funding to aid these poor children in Cambodia. The UN has announced they will set up a task force to address this global food crisis and do plan that it will be resolved but still this is of large concern to many. The daunting reality that people are starving in other parts of the world has again hit international news and will surely cause more social unrest with the face of the articles being children.  The goal to restart the feeding program is believed to restart in October 2008 which again seems absurd considering the comparatively small amount they are asking. One can only wonder how far the social unrest with these terrible situation and if the school feeding process will be restarted in October.