close to the us border. the decision came after footage emerged that appeared to show detention centre officials doing nothing to evacuate migrants during the fire. now on bbc news, it s hardtalk with sarah montague. welcome to hardtalk. i m sarah montague. close to 50 million people around the world are close to famine, a number that is rising because of war and the effects of climate change. it s the job of the world food program to feed them. my guest today, david beasley, has been running the organisation for the past six years and, in that time, has more than doubled the money it raises. and yet, as he admits, the numbers starving have only got worse and worse. he s about to move on. so, what did his time at the top of the world s largest aid agency teach him about one of the greatest problems mankind faces how to ensure no one dies of hunger? david beasley, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, sarah. now, you have said that when you took on the job six years ago, you thoug
he s about to move on. so, what did his time at the top of the world s largest aid agency teach him about one of the greatest problems mankind faces how to ensure no one dies of hunger? david beasley, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, sarah. now, you have said that when you took on the job six years ago, you thought you could put the world food program out of business because you could solve world hunger. at that time, there were 80 million who you described as marching towards starvation. and yet, the figure now, who you would classify in that way, is 350 million. was it ever solvable or is it just an impossiblejob? sure it was, and it is. unfortunately, when i took this role, as you said, i thought we could put the world food programme out of business. there were 80 million people in extreme hunger. there was no reason, with all the wealth and all the technology, we couldn t do that. but what happened 7 but what happened? we had war after war. then climate shocks on top of
for example, at the moment, you re cutting rations to the rohingya refugees in bangladesh because you re short of money and their monthly allowance is going down to $10 per person, cut byjust under a fifth when you ve already got children in those camps who are stunted and underweight, ijust wonder and i take your point that it s how much you can raise from donor countries, to some extent, they do but that s also based on the decisions that you make as to who lives and. ..effectively who lives and who dies. no, you know, i had someone said to me one day, you ve got the greatest job on the planet, saving the lives of millions of people every day. and i said, i do, i really do. but i want to tell you something that will bother you. i don t go to bed at night thinking about the children we save, i go to bed at night heartbroken about the children we couldn t save, and we don t have enough money, sarah, we have to choose which children eat, which children don t eat,
i don t go to bed at night thinking about the children we save, i go to bed at night heartbroken about the children we couldn t save, and we don t have enough money, sarah, we have to choose which children eat, which children don t eat, which children live, which children die. and so, our classification system, we reach the most vulnerable first, when we don t have enough money. and you think about the fact there s $400 trillion worth of wealth on planet earth a day. how in the name of god can we be in this situation where we don t have enough food to feed hungry children? and let me add right here, because you were mentioning the rohingya, in afghanistan right now, we literally just cut 4 million people in ipc level four. in other words, they re knocking on famine s door. 50% rations. syria, we re running out of money there. i can go on and on where we re running out of money. short term crisis, but we need long term solutions, which include, of course, ending wars. you ve done this f