I was reading the G8 declaration of last night.  Indeed, the leaders had a long list of international issues at hand – economic recovery, instability in Europe, the Greek tragedy, Nuclear Iran and Syria – to just name a few.

And yet there is another issue which we generally fail to take note of/underestimate in our large international gatherings amidst their extremely busy agenda of high-profile items.   Nor does it find a mention on any of the placards of protesters in the streets – be it an ´occupy´ protest or a sit-in at prominent squares of American or European capitals.

It is the issue of poverty and hunger.   It is the plight of the tens of millions facing drought, hunger and acute poverty world over and especially in the sub-Saharan Africa.   The Sahel food crisis is no secret to these world leaders. Yet they fail to take note of it, let alone doing something about it.

Yes, they did mention the food security somewhere in there in that text.  How could they not?   It is politically incorrect not to do so. Right?

Someone gave me this website www.wordle.net which helps you figure out the focus of a large text in just a click of the mouse.  I have put the text of the G8 declaration into it and the word cloud that came out looked something like this(click the image for a larger view):

Word cloud of G8 Declaration

Still having hard time finding words like poverty, hunger, refugees or Sahel Food Crisis in it?  Well, you see they are there somewhere in the text in the midst of the issues which are more important for humanity today, in their order of importance, I guess?

Naturally, you cann´t put those people on this word cloud who are not even demanding freedom, democracy, or at least a regime change (for crying out loud).  They cann´t even organize a sit-in at a public square through a smartphone.  They don’t have a twitter account not even a facebook profile!  Their only concern every morning is to somehow feed their families.

It just doesn´t seem fashionable to talk about these guys at grand forums such as G-8.

Postscript: I was at the L´Aquila (Italy) G-8 of 2009.   Compared to US$ 22 bn which was announced at that meeting (and much of which still remains to be disbursed) not a single penny was committed to poverty reduction/food security during the G-8 at Camp David.  Except, of course, the precious little announcement of US$ 3 bn through private sector, again, to be politically correct may be?