Why billions of euros wouldn't be enough to end world hunger

"If the rich just gave away a bit of their fortune, world hunger would disappear." We've all heard this argument in everyday conversation. It seems obvious: a single cheque from the world's wealthiest people would be enough to end famine. And the situation is truly dire: more than 645 million people still went hungry in 2025, and the United Nations' "Zero Hunger" goal for 2030 (SDG 2) is slipping further away. So is hunger really just a matter of money?

Where does the idea come from?

In October 2021, David Beasley, head of the World Food Programme (WFP), called out the world's multibillionaires directly on Twitter, saying that $6.6 billion would be enough to save 42 million people from famine. But that equation relies on 2 shortcuts.

1. An emergency response is not a lasting plan

The WFP's 6.6 billion was a targeted emergency response for 42 million people facing famine, over a single year. It was never a plan to end hunger, only a way to avert the worst in the short term. Hunger keeps coming back. A one-off donation can't solve it: the needs return every year and call for long-term funding.

2. A major financial misunderstanding

Billionaires' wealth is not a pile of cash waiting to be spent.

"Most billionaires are shareholders in companies. What gets counted as their wealth is the potential value of those shares if they were sold on the stock market. If we start taxing these fortunes heavily, these so-called 'billionaires' will have to sell some of their shares to raise cash. Keep that up for several years and they will lose control of their companies, with knock-on effects that won't all necessarily be positive… Because there's no guarantee at all that the hedge fund representatives who would then take over would be as visionary as the original founders in seeing what the future holds and inventing new solutions. And if we only tax in one part of the world, say just in France or Europe, it's quite simple: the companies will all be bought up, by Americans for example…"

That's how Bruno Parmentier explains it. He is an engineer and economist, a consultant on farming and food issues, author of Faim zéro, en finir avec la faim dans le monde (Zero Hunger: Ending World Hunger) and the writer behind the blog Nourrir Manger.

The myth of the magic cheque

Money can buy tonnes of food on international markets, but it can't guarantee physical access, or peace. Once the funds are raised and the food is paid for, a basic question remains: how do you get wheat into a territory under blockade, a country torn by civil war or a region whose infrastructure has been destroyed?

Take Gaza in early 2024. Even though international funding had been released, thousands of tonnes of food aid sat stuck at the territory's borders for weeks because of border restrictions and refusals to grant safe access. According to detailed reports from Amnesty International and UN agencies in February 2024, the number of lorries 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 layers of cross-checks, creating queues more than 20 kilometres long in the Sinai desert.

A cheque can't rebuild destroyed roads in a matter of days, replace fleets of wrecked lorries or lift a political veto.

As Bruno Parmentier points out:

"If it's a matter of scaling up emergency aid to quickly stop people in real, short-term danger from literally starving to death, for example by bringing food into refugee camps, those billions would undoubtedly be useful. All the more so because the main funders of these programmes have recently cut their contributions sharply, forcing NGOs to scale back drastically and quite literally abandon millions of people they used to help to their fate. Restoring those budgets by other means would be a blessing: many lives could be saved in the short term.

But on the other hand, we have to face the fact that violence in the world has risen considerably, bringing blockades in its wake. Reaching some populations directly has become practically impossible. There, having dollars to ship food in at great expense isn't enough, because most likely it won't actually reach the people who need it."

The real obstacles

Globally, the problem isn't 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, hunger today doesn't stem from a global physical shortage but from broken access: conflict, blockades, financial speculation, poverty and the use of food as a weapon of war.

C'est le cœur de la « géopolitique de la faim », un concept fondamental popularisé dans les années 50 par le géographe et médecin brésilien Josué de Castro, puis repris par Jean Ziegler, ancien rapporteur spécial des Nations unies pour le droit à l'alimentation (2000-2008). Pour tous les deux, la famine n'est pas une fatalité naturelle, mais le produit de décisions politiques et d'intérêts économiques.

Real-world examples of geopolitical obstacles

Bruno Parmentier explains:

"Look at Haiti, one of the countries with the highest concentration of NGOs for decades, and which is still almost the poorest country in the world: nothing can replace a functioning state. Consider that there are only 3 notaries left in the country and no police to uphold the law, so there's 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. Compare that with the other country on the same island, the Dominican Republic, which has far fewer NGOs but does have a state. The result: 3 times more malnutrition and child mortality in Haiti, and 7 times lower incomes…

Or take the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which ought to be a major exporter of farm produce (just like Brazil), but has the great misfortune of 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 run dry before the country becomes a great agricultural nation and hunger disappears 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 the canal. Oil, fertilisers and grain are stuck, which badly weakens farming and food supplies in many countries and drives hunger up sharply."

Haiti and the Dominican Republic: one island, two realities

The devastating impact on local markets

Pouring large sums of money into fragile local markets without managing the supply chain doesn't automatically put more food on people's plates. Where supply is limited, a sudden surge of demand with money behind it pushes prices up: local food prices risk soaring, hurting households who don't receive aid. Stocks can also be diverted by middlemen, militias or local authorities.

Bruno Parmentier warns:

"We must be careful that an easy short-term policy of making up for weak local farming with imports or donations doesn't stop that farming from ever 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. Many end up in slums, hoping for a little food but no longer producing anything for their country. In the medium term, it's absolutely vital that local farmers manage to feed their own people."

Brazil's example: the "Zero Hunger" programme

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

"It was a scandal that this huge agricultural exporter couldn't feed its whole population (because it's a fact that people can go hungry in a big country with a farm surplus). Lula created a kind of family allowance dedicated to food: swipe cards for poor families, topped up every month, which could only be used to buy local food. Within a few years, he had all but eliminated hunger in his country while supporting family farming and small shops!"

The economist adds a note of caution about how long such policies last, though: "These victories are very fragile, because wealthy city-dwellers bitterly resent being taxed to hand out money to the poor. It 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 effects of global warming speed up, even in temperate countries like France, where the 2026 harvest was dismal: there's 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, which is precisely where many of the world's hungry live, and where populations are still growing. Their ability to feed themselves keeps shrinking.

Sadly, the dollar can't do everything! Not in the short term, at least. Even so, it can certainly go a long way towards massive investment in productive farming and its adaptation to global warming; but there, unfortunately, we're talking about the medium and long term."

What really works: self-reliance

Does that mean money is useless? No. It just needs to be spent differently.

As Bruno Parmentier points out:

“Tackling hunger for the long term isn't about feeding people now and then. It's about creating the conditions that will eventually let them feed themselves properly. It isn't Europe's job to feed Africans: they absolutely must be able to do it themselves! That calls for long-term action that is deeply political: land ownership, tools of production, seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, water management, training for farmers, organising how harvests are collected, stored and transported, access to credit, and so on.”

Huge international budgets depend on permits, corridors and convoys. Faced with this, more and more organisations 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 community. One example is the humanitarian bakery LIFE set up in Gaza, which works with local suppliers. By producing 30,000 loaves a day, it provides direct aid while also supporting the local economy.

Hunger won't be solved with a cheque. Money is necessary, but it isn't enough. Does that mean hunger is inevitable? No. Ending hunger isn't realistic in the coming years, but stopping it from spreading would already be a victory, and ending it remains achievable in the longer term, on three conditions: lasting funding, guaranteed access for people in need, and strong local farming systems. And precisely because hunger is the result of human decisions, it can, and must, be fought with other decisions.