by John Prendergast and Terence Miller

About the author: John Prendergast directs the Horn of Africa Project for the Center for Concern, a Catholic research and advocacy organization located in Washington, D.C. He has written extensively on development and social justice issues. Terence Miller worked for the Maryknoll Office of Peace and Justice.

One statistic really says it all. During the 1980s, of the seven million children who died each year of malnutrition-related causes throughout the world, five million of those children were African.

Seventy-five percent of the world’s hungriest nations are in Africa, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Mozambique, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, and Chad lead the way. African countries account for 18 of the top 20 nations in the “low human development” category used...