Thaksaporn Sirichanyaphong

(May) 11-01
25/02/2015

Position Summary: Eradicate Global Hunger

Name of delegate: Thaksaporn May Sirichanyaphong
Issue: What can we do, as an UN faction, to eradicate global hunger?
Country assigned: Republic of Korea (ROK)
1.What is the current status of the 'issue' in your country?
The aftermath of WW2 and the Korean War did not only bring a huge hunger
to almost everyone in South Korea, but also lead them to know what hunger is like.
During that time, Koreans learned to fight against the hunger and food deficit.
Therefore, people realized how important hunger problems were and that was the
reason why South Korea joined the Zero Hunger Challenge, the global initiative plan
by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. It calls every nation to participate in ending
the world hunger. This plan leads to the agency called the UN World Food
Programme (WFP).
The period of Korean War is a grate time to show a real situation of hunger.
Based on a story of Charles Arnold, the UN Civil Assistance Team during the Korean
War, the children rubbing their stomachs stood in line to wait for their food. As the
refugees, who fled from war, these children had no food to eat. Their lives were very
struggle and intense from famine. Within a support of UNICEF, the children had an
opportunity to go to school, and also most importantly, they had food to eat. This
lesson of hunger made Korean people consider the hunger as one of the most
important problems that they had to deal with. Republic of Korea has continually
improved in order to achieve its plan of Zero Hunger; some crucial reform was
adapted such as land reform to improve the agricultural growth and promote the
equality of economic distribution in the rural society. Consequently, now there is no
any problem about hunger in South Korea instead Korean people do their best in
helping the poor.
South Korea has played a big role in helping to reduce the world hunger. As a
beginning, South Korea signed an agreement of the UN World Food Programme
(WFP) to commit 20 million dollars for ending the world hunger. This great role made
the world to accept the transition of South Korea from recipient to donor. Said Young
Ju Oh, director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Republic of Korea
(ROK); This is a historic event for ROK, transforming from a recipient to a donor.
ROK wants to combine its experience with WFPs expertise to make a real impact on
WFPs vision of Zero Hunger(DTE Staff, 2015) Recently, South Korea has become a
member of WFPs Executive Board. Apart from the great role of the nation, the school
in South Korea also has participated to fight with the world hunger. Students at Busan
International Foreign School gathered the money for WFP to help hunger people. The
teacher said that it would raise awareness of people and help the student to understand
more about the first Millenium Development Goalto eradicate hunger and poverty.
(Emberland, 2014)

2.What is your country's stand on the 'issue'?

As an example of the country to end the world hunger, South Korea has
already done well to reduce the world hunger. Starting in its country, there are not any
problems about hunger, even in the rural area. All Korean people have an awareness
of the issue and continually support to fight with the world hunger. On account of
South Koreas consideration, the starting of world peace requires a building of food
security. Korea believes that the basic thing of improvement should be started with
food, because children cant grow strongly and wont achieve things if they are
suffering from hunger. Since Koreans have learned how bad hunger is, they are
helping other countries, which are suffering from hunger. However, there are still a lot
of places in the world that people are suffering from hunger. Therefore, in order to
reduce the global hunger in other undeveloped countries, South Korea can keep
forward to eradicate more hunger by giving them a support and a way how Korea had
eliminated its hunger in the country. For example, one of the most important things
that South Korea had adapted was to promote the agricultural growth by starting with
the land reform plan. The distribution of lands provided poor farmers a chance to
share wealth and economic opportunities. This helped to empower the small peasants
and also distributed a development to the rural area. An essential way to start the land
reform is to set the ownership ceiling; to limit the freedom of selling lands of the
landowners (control the price) and then the government can buy these lands from the
landowners and distribute the lands impartially to the poor families. Based on this
plan, the lands would not only be hold by a few rich people or the landowners. This
will be a sustainable solution to reduce hunger in a country, however it needed time to
adjust the system and also a lot of money. Therefore, one easy way to receive the
money and support is from the United Nation World Food programmed and another
way is to promote the agricultural products. In order to support the plan, it is
necessary to provide the farmers the markets to sell the products, also these products
can make more money for the country to continue improve the country and proceed
the plan. Nevertheless, there are some limitations of country that can benefit of
applying this plan such as very poor country because, to start the plan, at least the
country should have the stability of its financial status and its management.
3.Explain the reason for the stand.
Being at first position as a recipient, South Korea was one of the first countries
the UN World Food Programme gave aids in 1960. However, now South Korea is one
of the main countries to donate money for WFP. WFP Executive Director Commends
Republic Of Korea--Ertharin Cousin-- is taking up a formal launch of the Zero
Hunger Challenge. She stated that South Korea was an example to proof that we
could achieve Zero Hunger in our lifetime since now South Korea becomes a donor to
other countries instead of being a recipient of international aid liked the past. (WFP,
2014) Moreover, according to the World Bank, the Depth of hunger in South Korea
was at 130 in 2008, which was a low rate of hunger. (Tradingeconomics, 2015) This
indicates well how Korea has achieved its plan and kept on steps. Therefore, if other
countries consider how crucial the problem about hunger is and how Korea has done
to reduce the hunger, it will help to raise their awareness and provide them a way to

cope with the hunger problem in their countries. In addition, the land reform plan can
help the country to promote its agricultural growth, reduce the hunger, provide poor
people a job and develop the equal distribution along the rural area of the country.

Reference
DTE Staff. (2015, Feb 17). South Korea commits $20 million to ending world hunger.
Retrieved Febuary 25,2015, from
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/south-korea-commits-20-millionending-world-hunger
Emberland, A. (2014, Feb 18). South Korean School Fundraises To Fight Hunger.
Retrieved Febuary 25,2015, from https://www.wfp.org/students-andteachers/students/blog/south-korean-school-fundraises-fight-hunger

Tradingeconomics. (2015). Depth of hunger (kilocalories per person per day) in

South Korea. Retrieved Febuary 25,2015, from
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/depth-of-hunger-kilocaloriesper-person-per-day-wb-data.html

WFT. (2014, May 23). WFP Executive Director Commends Republic Of Korea On
Taking Up Zero Hunger Challenge. Retrieved Febuary 25,2015, from
https://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/wfp-executive-directorcommends-republic-korea-taking-zero-hunger-challenge