The WFP has announced a new twist in its successful program using mobile phones to alert Iraqi refugees in Syria about available food aid.  Reuters reports:

Iraqi refugees in Syria will this week start receive U.N. text messages they can redeem for fresh food in local shops, the World Food Programme said on Tuesday. 

The "virtual vouchers" worth $22 per family every two months will supplement traditional aid which rarely includes perishable goods, WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella said, announcing the pilot project supported by the mobile company MTN.

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The Syrian pilot will initially reach 1,000 beneficiaries in and around Damascus, and may be extended, the WFP said. Casella described it as a way to help refugees eat a more diversified diet while also supporting local farmers and businesses.

"We are not giving food away, we are actually creating an additional market for local shopkeepers," she said.

WFP has actually been using mobile technology to connect with Iraq refugees for a couple of years now.  This case study tracks it back to 2007.

FP's Joshua Keating notes the strangeness of a world in which people don't have access to food but own mobile phones.  I hear what he's saying, and the situation may even be more shocking than he knows.  According to the UN's International Telecommunications Union, worldwide at the end of 2008 there were 4.1 billion mobile phone subscriptions, buoyed by developing countries, where two-thirds of those subscriptions were used.  The WFP's work in Syria is just one of the many projects taking advantage of the ubiquity of mobile device to affect change in the developing world.  A report last year from the UN Foundation and the Vodafone Group Foundation details a series of case studies that are fascinating.

If the G8 can figure out what to do about Italy, they might want to heed some of the Secretary-General's advice. In another op-ed that just might increase a few crushes (or maybe just boost his global popularity), Ban presents the responses to the global financial crisis last fall and the H1N1 epidemic this spring as evidence of the interconnectedness of global problems -- and how vigorous global cooperation can have a resounding impact. Armed with these examples, he lays down the gauntlet for the G8 on three of the causes he has taken up: global warming, the Millennium Development Goals, and the world food crisis. On the first, he sets an ambitious goal:

First, the G8 and other major emitters of greenhouse gases must intensify their work to seal a deal at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. That agreement must be scientifically rigorous, equitable, ambitious and exact. Achieving the goal of limiting the global mean temperature increase to two degrees Celsius will require nations to cut carbon emissions by 50% by 2050. The G8 and other industrialised countries must take the lead by committing to emission cuts of at least 80% from 1990 levels.

It's worth pointing out that this is the minimum that will be necessary to prevent the worst from happening. Yet it's also, thus far, more than the United States and other wealthy countries are ready to commit to. As Ban writes, "co-operation works, but we've only just gotten started."

 From the Food and Agriculture Organization. 

World hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009 with 1 020 million people going hungry every day, according to new estimates published by FAO today.

The most recent increase in hunger is not the consequence of poor global harvests but is caused by the world economic crisis that has resulted in lower incomes and increased unemployment. This has reduced access to food by the poor, the UN agency said.

"A dangerous mix of the global economic slowdown combined with stubbornly high food prices in many countries has pushed some 100 million more people than last year into chronic hunger and poverty," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. "The silent hunger crisis — affecting one sixth of all of humanity — poses a serious risk for world peace and security. We urgently need to forge a broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger in the world and to take the necessary actions."

 "The present situation of world food insecurity cannot leave us indifferent," he added.

The global economic crisis has hit those who can least afford it:

The global economic crisis has contributed to pushing the number of hungry people in the world above 1 billion for the first time, the head of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper.

The credit crunch is exacerbating the impact of soaring food price inflation in 2007 and 2008, which had already boosted the ranks of the chronically hungry from less than 850 million before the food crisis to 963 million by the end of last year.

FAO director Jacques Diouf told the FT on Thursday that number had increased, and "unfortunately, we are already quoting a number of 1 billion people on average for this year".

These are staggering figures. One can debate the merits of ethicist Peter Singer's approach to the problem, but it's hard to disagree with Sen. John Kerry, who rightly states that hunger is one of the greatest diplomatic and moral challenges the world faces.