At a current net worth of almost $200 billion, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, is the richest man in the world.  

You must wonder what someone could possibly do with all the money that he has acquired and will continue to acquire over the years.  

Bezos has invested large sums of money into other companies that he owns, like Washington Post and Blue Origin. 

Some of Bezos’s expenditures have taken a more philanthropic tone. For example, in April 2020, Bezos donated $100 million to Feeding America to help U.S. food banks increase food security in America. 

But as we all know, food security, or lack thereof, is not only an issue in America. Hunger and lack of food security is a global issue.  

With a net worth of almost $200 billion, couldn’t Bezos be contributing more of his wealth to resolve issues like world hunger?  

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimated in 2008 that $30 billion a year would help solve the issue of world hunger. With some help from the CPI inflation calculator on the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics website, it’s been found that $30 billion in 2008 would be equivalent to approximately $46.3 billion today.  

According to an article published on Sept. 15 by businessinsider.com, Jeff Bezos has become $70 billion dollars richer in the past 12 months. In that time span, Bezos could have helped solve world hunger for a year, and he would have still had billions of dollars left over.  

That isn’t to say that permanently solving the global issue of world hunger is as simple as investing annual amounts of cash into it.  

There are several factors that play into the existence of world hunger, like the lack of agricultural resources, overpopulation, economic inequality, political instability and unequal distribution of food. 

The equal distribution of food is reliant on the equal distribution of wealth. And until some of these other factors, like political instability, overpopulation and economic inequality are fixed, then world hunger cannot truly be eradicated.  

However, other factors that contribute to world hunger, like the lack of agricultural resources, can likely be resolved at a faster rate.  

That is where money comes into play. With adequate funds, organizations like the FAO could finance and develop the agricultural resources and programs necessary to increase food production in non-industrialized countries that have a higher rate of malnutrition.  

With the help of multi-billionaires like Bezos, we can accelerate the move towards an end to world hunger. It all depends if those who possess the power and the money to create change will step up to the plate.