At a news conference in late February, Hania Zlotnik, head of the U.N. Population Division, unveiled the 2007 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects, which indicated that half the world's population will live in urban areas by the end of 2008 and about 70 percent will be urban dwellers by 2050.
It’s hoped, of course, that urbanization will lead to improved living standards in Asia and Africa, where urbanization is spreading most rapidly. It’s certainly easier and more cost effective to deliver medical and other vital services to urban populations, but urbanization has its own set of potential problems, including crime, unemployment, and the rapid spread of communicable diseases.
One potential downside of urbanization that is often overlooked is that the urban poor are at the mercy of food prices. Poor farmers, too, can go hungry due to drought or other setbacks, but they are often removed from the global economy. When Thai rice prices spike above $500 a ton as they did this week, many poor farmers actually benefit, but not the urban poor.
In the Philippines this week, World Food Program Country Director Valerie Guarnieri warned that due to rising grain prices, the government and international agencies may have to boost food aid to the poor. The Manila Times article also said that local officials are expressing concerns:
Karen Serrano of barangay (village) Marquez in Legazpi City, the provincial capital, told The Manila Times that the prevailing price of rice from the National Food Authority in the public markets is P28 to P30 per kilo. This price, Serrano said, cannot possibly be within reach of poor families who are earning less than a dollar (P41) a day. Mayor Noel Rosal of Legazpi admitted to The Times that many poor families in the city already are skipping meals due to the high price of government rice. “There are families who could no longer take their meals [regularly], specifically their children, because their parents could no longer afford to buy several kilos of rice due to the high price and lack of supply. This is not a joke. At P30 per kilo of rice, numerous families might already be suffering from starvation,” Rosal said.
During the past several months, protests over rising food prices have broken out in numerous cities in Asia and Africa. Last year, when corn prices spiked, there were protests over the costs of corn tortillas in Mexico City.
Earlier this week, the European Union announced its biggest-ever food aid package – €160 million ($243 million) – to help relieve hunger in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Meanwhile, the World Food Programme announced that between now and mid-2008, WFP will provide food to 2.5 million people in Afghanistan because they can no longer afford to buy wheat.
