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Why spend so much money on space when we have other problems in the world? we should not spend valuable resources on space exploration because we could be using the money to help with world hunger, as well as using the money to help with climate changes and using the valuable resources to advance the military on what is happening.

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No, we should not spend valuable resources on space exploration because we could be using the money to help with world hunger, as well as using the money to help with climate changes and using the valuable resources to advance the military on what is happening.

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We should be spending more valuable resources on world hunger instead of space exploration.   World hunger is a big part of society. Using the money we spend on space exploration and using it on world hunger can solve many problems and help families in need.

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Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, livelihoods have been disrupted, agricultural production has faltered, and whole economies have cratered. As a result, hunger levels have surged.

More than 768 million around the world struggled with hunger in 2020, an increase of more than 100 million compared to the year before. In more than 43 countries, the threat of famine could cause 41 million people to starve. The World Food Programme is calling for $6 billion to address this dire situation.

Preventing famine should be a top priority for donor nations. But to end hunger once and for all, they need to do more than react to the latest humanitarian crisis. Further funds need to be raised in a sustained and well-coordinated way to ensure farmers can grow enough food for a growing population amid the intensifying climate crisis.

A new report by Donor Tracker maps funding levels for food security, nutrition, and agriculture and offers various recommendations for transforming the global food system.

Global Citizen spoke with the team at Donor Tracker to learn more about the report and to better understand the growing hunger crisis.

Global Citizen: Can you provide a bit of context for this report: What is the Donor Tracker and why did you write this publication on ODA for food and nutrition security?

Donor Tracker: Of course. So first of all, the Donor Tracker is an online platform that provides freely available evidence-based analysis of OECD development assistance committee (DAC) donors' development policy and financing. It is one of the flagship initiatives of SEEK Development, which is a strategic and organizational consultancy focused on global development impact and based in Berlin.

The story behind Donor Tracker is that through SEEK's work in the global development space, our team noticed a major gap in the landscape of available resources: There was no single source providing comprehensive information on donors' ODA, their development strategies, priorities, and decision-making processes. We saw that our colleagues at our peer organizations - many of whom are overworked and under-resourced - were forced to spend valuable time hunting for and piecing together information. And so, SEEK started the Donor Tracker.

Donor Tracker focuses on ODA of the 14 largest OECD DAC donors. We produce what we call "donor profiles," publish weekly policy updates covering news from our donors, and also write "Insights" reports that highlight key issues and trends in the development finance world; for example, this report on donor financing for food and nutrition security.

Because our aim is to elevate and support the work of advocates for global development (and of course, researchers, policy-makers, think-tank analysts, etc.) we try to time our analyses so that they can feed into important global conversations or decision-moments - so that advocates can go into these important discussions armed with the best and most up-to date information on the issues that matter to them. We decided to conduct this analysis of global food and nutrition security both because of the upcoming events and replenishments - for example, UNFSS and Nutrition for Growth Summit, and IFAD replenishment - and because of the intersection of food and nutrition security with other pressing issues of today, such as climate change and COVID-19.

What are some of the key financing trends around food security, nutrition, and agriculture? What areas need improvement and what countries can play a bigger role going forward?

Bilateral financing has actually gone up since 2015, but the number of hungry people has also gone up. You'd expect that as the financing goes up, the amount of hungry people would go down. One of the reasons that didn't happen is because the global population is growing so fast.

In the last year, the number of hungry people has gone up to 768 million in 2020 from about 650 million in 2019. We're at risk of losing all this great work that we've done over the past 10 years - that's one of the key insights of the report.

Bilateral financing has gone up but it doesn't even begin to meet the needs that we have now, let alone those going forward particularly when you take into consideration the effects of climate change, COVID-19, and conflicts. That's something we really need to take into consideration when budgeting for alleviating poverty and hunger.

In terms of multilateral funding, we would have expected it to increase like bilateral funding, but it decreased by 9% from 2017 to 2019. It's really important to flip that curve to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

We're seeing investments in humanitarian assistance at the moment, and it's important to have that same urgency when investing in agriculture, nutrition, and food security. If we don't invest in those aspects we may see a higher risk of famines in the future that may be more costly. It makes so much more sense to invest now than it does later.

How can investing in Global Goal 2: Zero Hunger impact other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?

It's one of the goals that's intricately linked to all of the other SDGs. If you take the example of a young child, if you don't invest in nutrition for that child, you'll see knock-on effects in terms of performance at school, their health, and their economic prospects. That's something we have to think of. Eating is such an emotive experience, we all have to eat, it's so important. Yet when you don't have food it will affect every aspect of your life, and therefore every SDG.

There's wasting and stunting, but if children are not being fed and nourished adequately, they also run the risk of becoming more obese later in life. That speaks to the double burden of malnutrition. We've primarily talked about it in terms of wasting and stunting but there's another aspect, which is the risk of obesity in low- and middle-income countries.

What does it say about the global food system that so many people are denied nutritious food?

It's completely broken. There's another aspect that we haven't discussed yet, which is the issue of food loss and food waste. Up to 40% of our food isn't even eaten. It's thrown out. It's lost in transport. Let's say you're in Morocco, my parent's country, you will see these big trucks with tomatoes. I will tell you that the tomatoes at the bottom of the truck will be mush by the time they arrive.

The global food system needs a complete overhaul if we want to provide people with the right calories, vitamins, and minerals. We're going to have approximately 10 billion people in 2050. Production in developing countries would need to almost double. When we grow crops and they experience stress, they're less likely to produce the nutrition we need, so the nutritional value of foods will be lower because of climate change.

It's a vicious cycle that's really hard to fix. We have to come together and really, piece by piece, unravel the complexity of this problem.

How has the pandemic affected financing for Global Goal 2?

There may have been an increase in ODA, but a large part went to health matters, humanitarian assistance, and, to a limited extent, agriculture and rural development.

A lot of the ODA that was provided by some donors has been in loans and not grants. ODA can be provided in different shapes and forms. Usually when it's humanitarian assistance, it will be in grants, and longer-term investments are at times provided in loans. By sending loans instead of grants, you may be indebting countries that can't afford it.

The international community tends to have a reactive approach to food security, meaning funds often get deployed to deal with crises after they happen rather than to prevent crises in the first place. What would happen if we moved to a more proactive approach?

Ideally, the chances of famine would drop and we would see knock-on effects in terms of avoiding political instability and emerging conflicts. I remember many years ago when the Arab Spring happened, the last straw that broke the camel's back was the price of grain going up. That's the truth of the matter: People need to eat.

This report is ultimately a cry for help to please invest in sustainable agriculture, not only for food security but also for climate change. Around 21% to 34% of greenhouse gases come from the agriculture and food sectors. You cannot imagine solving climate change without looking at agriculture.

You also can't just say we're not going to do the reactive approach anymore because these emergencies need funding. The only way to be proactive is to scale up funding overall for ODA so we have more and better funding.

The World Food Programme has requested $5.5 billion to deal with the ongoing famine. If that humanitarian assistance isn't provided it could lead to armed conflict that could take years to resolve.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the global food system in significant and long-lasting ways. How does this compare to the current and anticipated disruptions caused by climate change?

It's such a complicated question, because what is the cause and what is the effect? When it comes to agriculture, everything is the cause and everything is the effect. They're constantly interacting with each other

The extreme weather events are going to be disastrous for people growing their crops. This has happened in countries like Haiti, where IFAD investments were wiped out after the hurricane.

Then there's the losses due to the level of pests. The IPCC report has a relatively nuanced point on this that some crops will benefit from more CO2, but due to pests there is a higher risk of harvest loss. In addition to that, the nutrition of vegetables and fruit will be less because of the extremes in climate.

According to IFAD, there are three aspects to transforming the food system - resilience, diversified livelihoods, and system change.

When talking about resilience, how can we change crops or seeds to grow for the climate we are going to have? And then there's the livelihoods of small farmers. Despite them growing most of the food in low-income countries, they're disproportionately at risk of suffering from hunger. If we want to have farmers in the future, it has to become a sector where you can earn a livelihood.

We also need social protections to make sure that people don't fall behind certain incomes and inclusive markets that allow more farmers to sell their crops at competitive prices, While farmers' organizations can speak on their behalf and potentially provide loans where banks may not, it's important to have a governance system that supports you when you need to be supported.

What can Global Citizens around the world do to support the effort to end hunger?

The most important thing is to get to know the issue. There are different ways to get to know the issue. You can read the research at the Donor Tracker and the insights we deliver and join seminars to get to know the issues and the people behind the issues so you know who you can support.

Don't underestimate the power you have as a consumer and as a voter. Every time we purchase something in the supermarket, we may be voting for agriculture that isn't kind to the environment and laborers who grow our food. Make sure your vote counts. Get to know the issues and hold your political party accountable. Sometimes as an individual, it's a bit of a daunting experience, but doing something is better than doing nothing at all.
You can join the Global Citizen Live campaign to defend the planet and defeat poverty by taking action here, and become part of a movement powered by citizens around the world who are taking action together with governments, corporations, and philanthropists to make change.

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Why Do We Need Better Funding to End Global Hunger?

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Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, livelihoods have been disrupted, agricultural production has faltered, and whole economies have cratered. As a result, hunger levels have surged. More than 768 million around the world struggled with hunger in 2020, an increase of more than 100 million compared to the year before.

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Using our resources on more important things such as climate change we can see that there is a more drastic change in our climate that we need to focus on.

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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

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Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis - Full video

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Spending more money on the military can help better our country and our economy while thinking about everyone's safety we need to make sure our country is protected and we make sure that others are safe from invasion, bombing.

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Why Global Military Spending Is On The Rise

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In the final analysis, we shouldn't spend money on space exploration because we have other humanitarian problems on earth that can be somewhat resolved with the amount of money we spend on space exploration such as World Hunger, Climate Changes and using the money to advance our military.

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Others may believe that spending more money on space exploration can save us all, however, we don't know what is out in space, space is very dangerous and harms astronauts' mental health and stability.

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The Planetary Society * Aug 30, 2021

Your guide to advocating for space in a complicated world

Most people who love space and believe in exploration have probably heard this once or twice: "We shouldn't waste money on space exploration when there are problems to deal with here on Earth."

While public health concerns, social injustices, climate change, and other urgent issues are important to address, solving these problems doesn't depend on defunding space programs.

This can be a difficult conversation to navigate, so we've outlined a few ideas here that you can share when advocating for space.

Space spending pays off

If someone is arguing that public funds should be spent on solving the world's problems, they should know that money spent on NASA positively impacts the U.S. economy. We get the same kind of payoff for space spending in other countries. Spending on space supports highly skilled jobs, fuels technology advancements with practical applications, and creates business opportunities that feed back into the economy. This in turn grows the pool of public money that can be spent on solving the world's most pressing problems.

Space research directly impacts Earthly problems

When people apply themselves to the challenges of exploring space, they make discoveries that can help the world in other ways too. Studying how we might grow food in orbit or on Mars yields insights into growing food in extreme conditions on Earth, generating knowledge that can help mitigate the impacts of climate change. Medical research conducted on the International Space Station helps us understand the human body in new ways, helping save lives and improve quality of life.

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Studying space helps us understand our own world

Studying the cosmos gives us an important perspective shift. When we learn about what lies beyond Earth, it gives us context for understanding our own planet. Studying the other worlds of our solar system and beyond makes it clear that Earth is a precious oasis for life. When we sent spacecraft to Venus we saw how a runaway greenhouse effect turned the world from a habitable planet to an absolute hellscape. When astronauts travel into space they see just how thin and tenuous Earth's atmosphere is, appreciating the fragile balance in which we live. A cosmic perspective underscores the importance of protecting our planet's habitability and encourages investment in that effort.

Studying space may one day save us all

All the social and environmental progress in the world won't help us if an asteroid impacts the Earth. We have to explore space to find and study the asteroids and comets in our cosmic neighborhood if we want to make sure we can defend our planet if an object ever heads our way.

NEO Surveyor Artist's Concept The NEO Surveyor mission will look for asteroids and comets with orbits that come close to EarthImage: NASA/JPL-Caltech/The Planetary Society

Space is inspiring

Not every child who dreams of becoming an astronaut will get that opportunity. This is a sad truth that many of us know from experience. But to be inspired to aim for something so grand gives kids the motivation to study hard and gain skills in science, engineering, medicine, or other fields that benefit humanity and directly help overcome problems that we face as a species.

And inspiration isn't just for kids. When we marvel at the beauty of Jupiter's clouds or the mystery of Enceladus' oceans, we get an opportunity to appreciate the wonder and majesty of this cosmos that we inhabit. The idea that life might exist elsewhere in the universe reminds us that we might not be the only planet struggling to achieve balance, justice, and sustainability. And even in the bleakest of times, there's something beautiful about still striving to achieve something great and discover something that could change how we see ourselves and our cosmos forever.

The plumes of Enceladus The mysteries of the cosmos are waiting to be solved. What new insights will the future of exploration uncover?Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / Gordan Ugarkovic

There's plenty of room at the table

There's no denying that there are many important issues facing humanity that need fixing. But to deal with those problems doesn't mean we have to stop looking up, stop exploring, and stop making discoveries.

Human civilization has astonishing capacity, and we can do more than one important thing at a time. If someone thinks that a particular issue should get more attention and investment, they can and should advocate for that. The problems we face don't persist because we're spending money on space science and exploration. And there's no reason to pit our aspirations against one another.

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Why space exploration is always worthwhile

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A toolkit to help you advocate for the value of exploring space even when there are important problems to be solved here on Earth.