Houston We Have a Problem in Western Asia

Today at work, I had the pleasure of reading the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) report on The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2013 (SOFI 2013). Although there are many worthy topics in SOFI 2013, (in fact probably an entire blog’s worth!) I was most struck by the story of Western Asia.

This folks, is Western Asia

 Let’s start at the very beginning with naming. Right off the bat, I noticed (and consequently had to google) that listed among the regions of the world was the mysterious Western Asia. It turns out that this term is just the geographically appropriate & PC way to say “the Middle East”. Now, why would the FAO choose to describe the area as Western Asia. One could simply chalk it up to “geographical accuracy” but I believe something else is at play here. After all, most people are more familiar with using the term “Middle East” and SOFI 2013 is not written so densely that the general public would have a tough time sifting though it. (I actually think the document does a wonderful job of being accessible to the general public. Well done FAO!) 

To shed some light on the word choice, Let’s take a quick look into the findings of SOFI 2013. Just from skiming the first couple of section titles we learn that ALMOST all regions are seeing a drop in hunger but that the improvement is happening at different rates. We, as a whole, are also not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for hunger, that some countries have already met it, and, though substantial work is needed, the MDG target could be reached. We are then treated to a graph of the uneven progress:

Everywhere seems to be getting better… everywhere except Western Asia. I think this graph perfectly illustrates why the FAO does not say “the Middle East”.

When most people hear “Middle East” there’s a good chance that 

or

or even

is what they think of.

 We see from the previous graph that the Middle East/ Western Asia is THE ONLY REGION doing a backslide. The problem of hunger in the area is actually GETTING WORSE! In a report tackling the already difficult to solve problem of hunger, the last thing that is needed is to remind people of their prejudices. Alleviating world hunger requires ALL hands on deck.