Sen and Dreze (1989) express the same view somewhat more emphatically when they say that "hunger, and famine in particular, is intolerable in the modern world, because it is unnecessary and unwarranted". Contrary to Malthus's argument in "An Essay on the Principle of Population" it is agreed that if all the world's resources, in particular food resources were distributed evenly around the world then theoretically speaking there should be no hunger or famine. In 1998 it was estimated that between 15-35 million people around the world were suffering from famine, and up to 1 billion from malnourishment. This essay is going to look at the causes of this "unnecessary" state of the world. Whilst famine has received press attention, malnourishment has often been ignored largely because it does not have the same "drama" attached to it and because it is regarded as a longer term problem with fewer quick fix solutions, though it affects many more people. Since Malthus" work there has been an evolution in the understanding of the processes leading to famine and malnourishment. This essay is going to firstly look at traditional explanations such as environmental and population growth. Then it will discuss the groundbreaking work done by Sen in the 1980s which looked at spaces of vulnerability created by changes in food entitlement and command over food. I will then look at global historical and large-scale structural factors that are now thought to be important in explaining the phenomenon. Having explained the triggers that can have severe consequences on areas of vulnerability (the degree to which a system may react adversely to the occurrence of a calamitous or hazardous event (Timmerman 1991)), I will look at the locally and historically specific configurations of poverty, hunger and famine.
The sub-Saharan regions of Africa have suffered from famine and hunger more than anywhere in the world.