When President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil pitched the Group of 20 largest economies a plan to drastically slash world hunger, he may have been speaking out of political ambition. But he was also speaking from personal experience.
Lula, 78, was born to parents who had experienced famine as farmers in rural northeastern Brazil. And he centered his first presidency two decades ago around social welfare programs that helped reduce childhood malnourishment and mortality in his country by almost half.
So he drew on that experience when he spoke in Rio de Janeiro in July before the finance chiefs of the G20, which Brazil chairs this year, and forcefully said that it is appalling for millions of people to go hungry while wealthy individuals travel to space.
About the author
Jorge Valencia
Jorge Valencia is a freelance journalist based in Bogotá, Colombia. He previously covered Latin America from Mexico City for public radio in the United States. A 2023 fellow with the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, he has also reported from Arizona, North Carolina, and Virginia.
