[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 103 (Thursday, July 25, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1393]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     FOOD CRISIS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

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                           HON. BOBBY L. RUSH

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 25, 2002

  Mr. RUSH. Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak on this 
very important global issue. My thanks, too, to the gentlelady from 
California, Representative Waters, for bringing this critical issue to 
the Floor.
  There are almost 13 million people in the southern part of Africa who 
are in danger of dying from starvation: a great number of these people 
are women and children. The severity of the food shortages in the 
region is due large in part by the severe drought affecting the area 
for the past decade.
  Worldwide humanitarian aid directed to the country has helped to 
increase the life expectancy of Africa's citizens by nearly 20 years 
since 1960. Each year, humanitarian aid programs help save the lives of 
an estimated seven million African children, delivering essential food 
and medicine to disaster victims and assisting regional refugees 
fleeing their native countries because of political or economic unrest.
  However, Mr. Chairman, to my chagrin, and to what should be an 
embarrassment to this country, less than half of 1 percent of all of 
the United States' foreign aid funding is directed to food relief and 
hunger abatement in nations around the world.
  The United States now ranks fourth--behind Japan, behind France, and 
behind Germany--in the level of aid that we contributed to the world's 
poorest countries. The United States ranks LAST among the 21 richest 
nations in the percentage of our Gross National Product (GNP) used to 
fight world hunger and poverty.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to increase the level of our humanitarian aid to 
Africa because it is the right thing to do; it is the moral thing to 
do. We are morally obligated, as citizens of a country where food is 
plentiful, to help people who are dying because of a lack of food.
  Mr. Speaker, I would be happy if this House of Representatives 
appropriated $1 billion toward hunger abatement efforts in southern 
Africa but I know there is a slim possibility of this happening.
  However, I believe that this body can appropriate $200 dollars to 
provide emergency supplemental relief to respond to the food crisis in 
Southern Africa, and I hope that we do.

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