Why billions of euros would not be enough to end world hunger

"The rich only need to give a little of their fortune, and world hunger would disappear." We have all heard this argument in everyday conversations. The idea seems obvious: a simple cheque from the world's biggest fortunes would be enough to end famine. The situation is indeed dramatic: more than 645 million people still faced hunger in 2025, and the "Zero Hunger" goal set by the United Nations for 2030 (SDG 2) is slipping away. So is hunger really just a question of money?

Where does the idea come from?

In October 2021, the head of the World Food Programme (WFP), David Beasley, publicly challenged multi-billionaires on Twitter, stating that 6.6 billion dollars would be enough to save 42 million people from famine. But this equation rests on 2 shortcuts.

1. An emergency response is not a lasting plan

The WFP's 6.6 billion responded to a targeted emergency, for 42 million people at risk of famine, over one year. It was not a plan to end hunger, but to avoid the worst in the short term. Hunger is a recurring problem. A one-off donation does not solve it: needs come back every year and require long-term funding.

2. A major financial confusion

Billionaires' wealth is not a reserve of available cash.

"Most billionaires are shareholders in companies. What is counted in their fortune is the potential value of those shares if they were put back on the stock market. If we start heavily taxing these fortunes, these so-called 'billionaires' will have to sell part of their shares to raise cash. If we keep going down this path for several years, they will lose control of their companies, with knock-on effects that will not all necessarily be positive… Because it is far from certain that the representatives of the speculative funds who would then take over would be as visionary as the original founders in understanding what lies ahead and inventing new solutions. And if we only tax in one part of the world, for example just in France or in Europe, it's very simple: the companies will all be bought up, for example by Americans…"

This is the explanation given by Bruno Parmentier, engineer and economist, consultant on agricultural and food issues, author of Faim zéro, en finir avec la faim dans le monde (Zero Hunger: Ending World Hunger) and editor of the blog Nourrir Manger.

The illusion of the magic cheque

Money can buy tonnes of food on international markets, but it guarantees neither geographical access nor peace. Once the funds are raised and the food paid for, a fundamental question remains: how do you get wheat into a territory under blockade, a civil war zone or a region whose infrastructure has been destroyed?

In Gaza, for example, in early 2024, while international funding had been released, thousands of tonnes of food aid remained stuck for weeks at the territory's gates because of border restrictions and refusals of secure access. According to detailed reports by Amnesty International and UN agencies in February 2024, the number of trucks allowed through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings had fallen by more than 30% compared with previous months. Goods had to go through up to three levels of cross-inspections, causing queues of more than 20 kilometres in the Sinai desert.

A cheque cannot rebuild destroyed roads in a few days, replace fleets of trucks that have been wiped out, or lift a political veto.

As expert Bruno Parmentier points out:

"If the aim is to step up emergency aid to quickly keep people who are truly at risk in the short term from literally starving to death, for example by bringing food into refugee camps, these billions would undoubtedly be useful. All the more so since the major funders of these programmes have recently cut their contributions sharply, forcing NGOs to scale back their activities drastically and literally abandon to their fate millions of people they used to help. Restoring these budgets through other channels would be a blessing: many lives could be saved in the short term.

But on the one hand, we have to acknowledge that the level of violence in the world has risen considerably, along with its share of blockades. Direct access to some populations has become practically impossible. There, having dollars is not enough to ship food at great expense, because the most likely outcome is that it will not actually be distributed to those who need it."

The real obstacles

At the global level, the problem is not one of quantity: the planet already produces enough food to feed all of humanity. As the IPES-Food expert panel also points out in its March 2026 report, modern hunger does not stem from a global physical shortage, but from broken access chains: conflict, blockades, financial speculation, poverty and the use of food as a weapon of war.

This is the heart of the "geopolitics of hunger", a key concept popularized in the 1950s by the Brazilian geographer and physician Josué de Castro, then taken up by Jean Ziegler, former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food (2000-2008). For both of them, famine is not a natural inevitability, but the product of political decisions and economic interests.

Concrete examples of geopolitical obstacles

Bruno Parmentier explains:

"Consider that one of the countries with the highest density of NGOs for decades, which is and remains almost the poorest country in the world, is Haiti; nothing there can replace a real State. Bear in mind, for example, that there are only 3 notaries left in the country, and no more police to enforce the law, so there is no secure land ownership. As a result, when people cut down trees for cooking fuel, nobody bothers to replant, and the country is turning into desert. Unlike what is happening in the other country that shares the same island, the Dominican Republic, which has far fewer NGOs but a State. The result: 3 times more malnutrition and child mortality, and 7 times lower incomes…

Or consider that the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which should normally be a very large exporter of agricultural products (just like Brazil), has the great misfortune of having extraordinary mineral wealth and a weak State, which has kept it in civil war for 60 years. We will probably have to wait until the last diamond, copper, cobalt and rare earth mines and the last oil fields have run dry for this country to become a major agricultural nation and for hunger to disappear there.

The wars in Ukraine and Iran are currently blocking strategic straits (the Bosphorus, Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb, etc.), while low rainfall in Panama has sharply reduced traffic through its canal. Oil, fertilizers and grain are stuck, which severely weakens agriculture and food supplies in many countries and sharply increases hunger."

Haiti and the Dominican Republic: one island, two realities

The devastating impact on local markets

Pumping large amounts of money into fragile local markets, without regulating the supply chain, does not automatically put more food on people's plates. Where supply is limited, demand that suddenly has money to spend pushes prices up: this is the risk of local food inflation, at the expense of households that do not receive aid. Stocks can also be diverted by middlemen, militias or local authorities.

Bruno Parmentier warns:

"We must make sure that an easy short-term policy, which makes up for the shortcomings of local agriculture with imports or donations, does not permanently prevent that agriculture from developing. When imported wheat or international aid arrives at prices below local production costs, farmers in the Global South can no longer make a living from their work. Many end up in slums, hoping to eat a little, but no longer producing anything for their country. In the medium term, local farmers absolutely must be able to feed their own population."

The example of Brazil: the "Zero Hunger" programme

To show that a political solution is possible, Bruno Parmentier recalls the initiative launched by President Lula in Brazil:

"It was a scandal that this huge agricultural exporter could not feed its entire population (because it is a fact that people can go hungry in a large country with an agricultural surplus). Lula created a kind of family allowance dedicated to food: magnetic cards for poor families, credited every month, which could only be used to buy local food products. Within a few years, he had almost eradicated hunger in his country while supporting family farming and small retailers!"

The economist nevertheless questions how long such policies can last: "These victories are very fragile, since wealthy city dwellers bitterly resent him for taxing them to hand out money to the poor, and this was called into question by Bolsonaro senior and may well be again by future presidents."

The shock of global warming

On top of these political obstacles comes the climate emergency. Asked "And what about global warming?", Bruno Parmentier replies:

"We are indeed seeing the dramatic consequences of global warming accelerate, even in temperate countries like France, where the 2026 harvest was dismal; there is talk of 5 to 10 billion in losses for French farmers, and food inflation is picking up again. But droughts, floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, diseases and epidemics are spreading above all in tropical and equatorial countries, precisely where a large share of hungry people live, and where the population keeps growing. Their ability to feed themselves keeps declining.

Unfortunately, the dollar cannot do everything! At least not in the short term. Nevertheless, it can certainly go a long way towards massive investment in developing productive agriculture and adapting it to global warming; but there, unfortunately, we are talking about the medium and long term."

What really works: self-reliance

Should we therefore conclude that money is useless? No. It needs to be spent differently.

As Bruno Parmentier stresses:

"Fighting hunger sustainably is not about feeding people from time to time, but about creating the conditions that will eventually allow them to feed themselves properly. It is not up to Europe to feed Africans; they absolutely must be able to do it themselves! This requires long-term, highly political action: land ownership, production tools, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, water management, farmer training, the organization of harvest collection, storage and transport, access to credit, and so on."

Faced with huge international budgets that depend on permits, corridors and convoys, more and more actors are turning to short supply chains and self-sufficient local infrastructure: buying from nearby producers and suppliers, producing on site, and distributing through teams rooted in the area. One example is the humanitarian bakery set up in Gaza by LIFE, which works with local suppliers. By producing 30,000 loaves of bread a day, it provides direct aid while supporting the local economy.

Hunger will not be solved with a cheque. Money is necessary, but it is not enough. Does that mean we should resign ourselves to it? No. Ending hunger is not realistic in the coming years, but stopping it from growing would already be a victory, and ending it remains an achievable goal in the longer term, on three conditions: long-term funding, guaranteed access for populations and strong local food systems. And it is precisely because hunger is the product of human decisions that it can, and must, be fought with other decisions.