Why Eradication of Child Hunger Needs to Top The List of Priorities in CSR?

We have always associated child hunger and starvation with third-world countries, countries in the middle of conflicts, and so on. We often forget the hidden hunger – chronic malnutrition in developing countries. Yes, one in five minors in America is in a household with no consistent access to nutritional food. Government, non-profit organizations, and several other entities are fighting the noble war again malnutrition. Even science picked up the slack with nutrition pills, drought-resistant food, cheap alternatives, and more. It even covered other bases like better food distribution, reduced food wastage, etc.

The main crucial broken bridge in this fight is the lack of resources. While governments complained about the past ruling parties and NGOs complaining about lack of funds, the private sector jumped in to boost their brand name with CSR.  They certainly have the fund, and people (customers) love a hero without a cape. But more important than anything, what is the actual use of profit maximization beyond financial independence? There needs to be a bigger cause- a bigger contribution.

Also Read: Financial Inclusion Means Nothing Without Eliminating Child Hunger

Why Companies Should Prioritize The Child Hunger Fight?

With 46% better wage-earning adults, it is a massive return on investment for the economy and business. Beyond that, here are the top reasons companies should focus on eradicating child hunger.

• A High Purchasing-Powered Market

It is an add-on advantage of having better wage-earning adults. Boosting your market’s purchasing power will ensure more audience and even niche markets to diversify or expand your business model. The best example is how even well-established companies lost millions of loyal customers due to degraded purchasing power due to the pandemic. Thus, it is always crucial to hype up your market’s purchasing power.

According to Carin Smaller, director of the International Institute of Sustainable Development, if corporates do not step up to eradicate starvation, hunger will disrupt society, and the companies will not stand to see a profit on a long-term basis.

• Attain Better Tax Holidays

Tax holiday refers to a government incentive of reduced tax for a business or an industry either to foster their growth in their economy or as an investment incentive. Several governments have given tax holidays for CSR activities. While you work towards a society’s starvation, the government would sweeten the pot with better tax benefits, which you could leverage to beat your competitors.

• Avoid Rising Labor Cost With Starvation Eradication

Wouldn’t a poverty-ridden society offer low-cost labor? Of course, millions of people suffocating from poverty will be ready to work for a dime. But what about high-quality labor? Child hunger leads to impaired focus, mental and physical growth, cognitive ability, and skill development. What kind of workforce can you derive from such a population?

The remaining small percentage of well-fed and well-educated children might grow into a resourceful workforce. But how many do you think would choose your industry as their career? With only a handful of competent experts in the market, the demand sky-shoots while supply crawls. There would be a noticeable rise in labor charges. The average salary rose by 3% in 2021, and a prediction of 3.9% is on the table for 2022.

An added problem to the lack of efficient labor is slowed production, which would have an avalanche effect on your company’s near-future profit and sustainability. If you wish to battle this, you must either nick the child hunger today or spend a large portion of your revenue on employee retention or outsourcing. There is another correlation between starvation and the freelance economy.

Since your workforce becomes thinner due to a lack of intelligent adults, a small percentage of your valuable employees might get burdened with too much work. This strained work-life balance and the fact that their expertise is in demand would thrust your employees into the freelancing business. Thus, soon, companies like yours will end up relying on freelancers rather than full-time employees. This statement might look like an exaggeration. But, in 2019, there were only 2 million freelance workers in America, and in 2020, there were 59 million. 

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What’s Wrong With Today’s Child Hunger CSR?

Most corporates are already into child hunger elimination. Why should more companies prioritize it? Today, we have enough companies working on it, and too much redundancy leads to a worthless impact. 

While prioritizing child hunger as their primary CSR, the companies should

1. Gain vital information about family behaviors, government organizations, communities, community education, and more.
2. Too many agencies and corporates with overlapping CSRs can complicate things, and at the end of the day, the child-in-need would not receive his essentials.

How Can Corporates Make A Difference?

Every donation to NGOs, food drives, and other small stones does help to beat the Goliath. But, if you are a large entity, you can help to push starvation from 9% to 3% in the next decade. You can easily pick a catalytic role in any of the areas suggested in Ceres 2030. 

1. Include customers in these causes by creating point systems wherein customers can donate the redeemed points or offer to donate $1 from each product sold and so on.
2. Promote employee volunteerism in such related programs.
3. Partnering with food banks, volunteer programs, and others to support causes related to child hunger, food distribution, and more.
4. Invest in SMEs to improve their value chain, thereby reducing food loss.
5. Sponsor community events to educate society about the problem. 

Wrapping Up

Child hunger is a global crisis. CSR should be void of short-term stakeholder demands if we are speaking of this extensive level of starvation eradication. Corporations should create a disciplined business approach to pick up some weight rather than just throwing money to have some publicity leverage over their competitors.