The title of the 1991 World Food Day teleconference is "The Hunger Puzzle: Adding the International and Macroeconomic Pieces."  An international expert panel will discuss how a number of over-arching problems in the Third World — foreign debt, trade deterioration and faulty development policies — brought economic progress to a halt and increased poverty and hunger during the 1980s. They will review the causes of this historic development pause, with a special focus on the experience of the Western Hemisphere, and the outlook for the rest

In a sense this is a departure from previous teleconference themes, with less emphasis on direct farm/food issues of agricultural systems, natural resources, food distribution and consumption, and more about the hunger/poverty impact of global economic systems.  In an increasingly complex and interdependent world, these macroeconomic issues are better understood to be critical determinants in the development struggle.  They dictate the philosophical framework and rules of the game for membership in the international community.  They increasingly decide the willingness of the international agencies to support national programs and, as a result, restrict the capacity of developing country governments to choose alternative models.

The current development debate is not just theoretical, either for Third World governments or the poor.  Under the guidance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund — as well as their own response to the loss of development momentum — poor countries are recasting their economic planning systems.  These changes, which come under the general rubric of "structural adjustment," have profound implications:

• Debt.  In a decade of explosive growth, the debt owed by Third World countries to foreign banks, governments and international agencies climbed to an astronomic and unpayable $1.3 trillion.  Debt servicing, the annual payments of interest and amortization of principal, came to $150 billion.  These figures have come down marginally since a peak in 1989, but debt is still the main cause of a net annual transfer of wealth from the poor countries of the world to the rich.  A few countries have won debt reduction agreements, but only after promising a package of policy reforms that gain the approval of World Bank/IMF managers.
• Trade.  To pay debt and reduce their current account deficits in the early part of the 1980s, Latin American countries began an all-out export drive and cut their imports by a total of 40%, setting off an economic recession that still perseveres a decade later.  Trade reforms, including floating exchange rates and opening domestic economies to foreign competition, are part of the structural adjustment package but, conversely, commodities and goods sold by these countries on world markets continue to face a barricade of quotas, special agreements and escalating tariffs that are said to cost the developing world up to $100 billion a year.  However, "exceptions" to free trade rules under the GATT are protected by both rich and poor.
• Development Policies.  Along with their problems of trade and debt, developing countries are trying simultaneously to overturn decades-old development strategies to rely less on government controls, subsidies and tariff protection and more on free-market mechanisms and the private sector.  To fight inflation and get rid of government intervention, they are selling state-owned industries closing down state commodity purchasing boards and reopening economies to foreign private investment.  These steps, too. are part of the structural adjustment package.

In some countries, the reforms have shown promising results (or a promise of future results) on government ledgers, but the social costs have been high.  In Latin America and the Caribbean, real wages fell during the decade, while unemployment grew; education budgets shrank by as much as 25; cuts in food subsidies were widely seen as a main reason for a region wide increase in malnutrition; the incidence of malaria is increasing and cholera has reappeared- agricultural production increased less than population.

In other words, the burden of change fell disproportionately on the shoulders of those who are least able to, carry it — the very young and very old, the small farmers and landless campesinos, the urban poor.  International agencies have come to recognize this unfairness (since the poor had nothing to do with the national and international policy decisions leading to the crisis) but the remedial proposals and programs offered are widely seen as inadequate and ineffectual.

Thus, to development experts in Washington, the 1980s were marked by an abrupt halt to economic development and social progress on the one hand, but important macroeconomic reform, still incomplete, on the other.  The teleconference participants will consider various aspects of this analysis:

1. Whether structural adjustment policies now on trial will restore long-term growth or are badly conceived;
2. How long democratic governments can go on testing policies that don't show tangible benefits for the people;
3. What role the rich world is called on.to play in; a new North-South bargain for development and global progress;
4. Whether free trade and regional integration schemes now under consideration promise a way out of the growth dilemma; and
5. What can be done to reduce the burden of macroeconomic policy change on the poor.  

In preparing "middle hour" panels and presentations, teleconference sites may want to consider how local, state and national food/resource issues interact with the more global perspectives of the international panelists.  For example, what links exist between the rise in Third World debt and U.S. farm debt during the same period?  How would the proposed Uruguay Round changes impact on U.S. agriculture and industry and how might U.S. food safety regulations be influenced?  What industries and regions of the U.S. benefit from special "protection" from international competitors, and what disruption would result from a phasing out of these special exceptions to world trade norms?