This year, Manos Unidas has begun a three-year struggle against hunger, which will culminate in 2018, just as this Catholic Church NGO specialized in promoting development is about to celebrate its 60th anniversary. During these three years, it will focus its efforts on combating the main causes of hunger: the misuse of food and energy resources; an international economic system that prioritizes profit; and lifestyles that increase vulnerability and exclusion.
Soledad Suárez, president of Manos Unidas, pointed out at the presentation of the campaign that "it is unacceptable that hunger can be allowed in the 21st century, in a world of abundance like ours", and that "it is contrary to logic, ethics and morality that one out of every nine people on earth goes hungry, while every year 1/3 of the food produced is lost and wasted". He alluded to the data provided by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) according to which 795 million people go hungry in the world, and to a figure recently published by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment: every year 1,300 million kilos of food are thrown away.
This year, Victoria Braquehais, a Spanish nun of the Purity of Mary who runs an institute in the village of Kancence, in the southwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Dr. Carlos Arriola, who works at the Jocotán children's nutritional recovery center in Guatemala, put their faces and names to the Manos Unidas campaign.
At its crossroads against hunger, Manos Unidas believes that the North-South scheme, in which the rich countries show the poor the way forward, is no longer valid. Moreover, as Pope Francis suggests in the encyclical Laudato si', it is necessary to link development with the environment and sustainability.
In that direction, between late 2015 and early 2016, Manos Unidas has supported various emergencies in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, where the lack of rainfall suggests a great humanitarian tragedy; in contrast to the El Niño phenomenon that has forced to respond to emergency calls for floods in Paraguay, Congo and India.
In the area of refugee aid, Manos Unidas has supported projects in Jordan to help Syrian and Iraqi refugees and refugees fleeing the conflict in South Sudan. And it has contributed to improving the living conditions of displaced persons in Thailand, Colombia, Central African Republic and Congo.
All this work would not be possible, logically, without the support of the nearly 79,000 members and collaborators of Manos Unidas, as well as contributions from public and private institutions. Manos Unidas' income in 2015 increased by 4.7 % and reached 45.1 million euros. An increase due to private donations, which grew by 5.4 % compared to 2014.
With this income, it has been possible to approve nearly 600 development projects directly benefiting 2.8 million people. In 2016, for the implementation of food security projects alone, Manos Unidas will allocate 11 million euros; 10 % more than in 2014 and 2015....
