U.N. Report

Galvanized by hope

When James Morris, executive director of the United Nations’ World Food Program, scans the globe at the start of the new year, he sees a lot of problems — famines caused by crop failure and civil war, widespread hunger exacerbated by bad government policies, and smaller rations to make donor money stretch further.

But Mr. Morris is an upbeat mood, talking “can do” and brimming with new ideas to feed 77 million people in 82 countries.

There is the revitalized U.S. Fund for WFP, a Washington-based charity that raises tax-deductible contributions for the agency from U.S. citizens and corporations. The fund is preparing a campaign to raise $34 a year — 19 cents per school day — for a school-feeding program that will feed children and increase their odds of getting an education.

A corporate-outreach program will begin soon to wrestle sizable donations from agribusiness, seeking contributions of cash or food. Although the United States is the obvious place to start, Mr. Morris said, he has had some luck with European companies as well. In the next five years, he said, corporate contributions should be a major revenue stream.

He’s even excited about actor Sean Connery’s effort as a good-will ambassador — “the most gracious gentleman,” said Mr. Morris of the former big-screen James Bond.

Mr. Morris is halfway through his term at the helm of the WFP and, in the words of publicist Trevor Rowe, “lives in the air,” flying between U.N. meetings, fund-raising efforts, impoverished countries and his agency’s Rome office.

By most accounts, the retired executive should be working on his golf swing and writing checks, not negotiating with balky North Korean leaders about whether his staff can use walkie-talkies, or persuading Zimbabwe’s officials not to scrap a perfectly functional nongovernmental organization-based distribution system for one the government can control. Or browbeating governments wrestling with domestic problems into spending money to feed foreigners.

Mr. Morris, a politically connected official with deep roots in the Indianapolis business community, used to run the philanthropic Lilly Endowment Inc. That never prepared him for the issue that moves him most deeply — children orphaned by AIDS. There are at least 14 million such youngsters in sub-Saharan Africa, many of them alone or caring for even-younger siblings. U.N. estimates show that the number of such children could rise to 20 million in the next decade.

“These kids have the most incredible struggle ahead of them,” said Mr. Morris, his voice breaking slightly. “When a child finds himself in a predicament like this, absolutely not in the least of his or her own making, the world has a responsibility to help.”

From elsewhere, meanwhile, the good news keeps tumbling in.

North Korea had another weather break and improved its harvest for the third year in a row, although the output is still half what it was in 1994. Its government also has made minor concessions to WFP security and monitoring demands, although it hasn’t yielded on substantive issues that will make donors more generous.

International assistance to survivors of the recent earthquake in Iran came from varied corners, including countries such as the United States that don’t have ties with Tehran.

The WFP will continue to devote half its resources to Africa, where troubled states such as Sudan, Liberia, Zimbabwe and Eritrea compete for limited assistance. But appeals on behalf of these countries remain woefully underfunded.

“The will of humanity needs to be expressed, to say: ’It is intolerable that this many people are hungry and struggling in 2004, amid the prosperity most of us enjoy,’” Mr. Morris said. “If each of us just does a little more, we’ll change the world economically, and change the world’s security, both politically and spiritually.”

• Betsy Pisik can be reached by e-mail at UNear@aol.com.