Before the United Nations world food summit opened June 10 in Rome, undeveloped countries held little hope of progress in ending hunger because, they said, developed countries still clung to failed policies of the past. Developed countries predicted failure as well, only with the policies of undeveloped countries and the U.N. itself named as culprits. Cynical observers said the summit was so preordained to failure that its only real value for delegates would be as a shopping trip in one of the world’s fashion capitals.

The summit ended Thursday with everyone proved right. There was no progress on hunger and the shopping, reportedly, was quite good.

The problem is one that demands progress. An estimated 800 million people do not have enough to eat, roughly the same number as in 1996, when the last world food summit set a goal of halving that by 2015. It is particularly acute in southern Africa, where an estimated 13 million people are not merely hungry, but face imminent starvation.

The issue is not merely, or even substantially, that of the haves giving more food to the have-nots. The failed policies to which undeveloped countries refer are not of the developed countries being too stingy, but of being too generous – the enormous subsidies wealthy governments provide to their agriculture industries (about $400 billion a year) flood the global marketplace with cheap food. That, combined with trade barriers and lack of access to capital (lending to Third World agriculture is one one-hundredth of the amount spent on First World agriculture subsidies), prevents agriculture in poor nations from advancing beyond subsistence farming. It is said that Zimbabwe, epicenter of the current southern Africa famine, could be the continent’s breadbasket were it not for these policies.

Those are valid points, as are the points raised by the developed countries. The combination of notoriously corrupt governments in undeveloped countries and inept management by the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization makes direct food aid the only humane response and providing free food requires subsidies to the producers.

While this squabbling was going on in Rome, encouraging words came out of Geneva, headquarters of the World Food Program, which used the occasion as a reminder that progress need not wait upon policies to change – progress can change policies. At a press conference that offered sharp contrast to the futile summit, James Morris, director of the World Food Program, said the focus should be on the relatively cheap and uncomplicated effort of feeding kids in school, which his organization has done for 39 years and does now in 60 countries for 15 million children at a current cost of 19 cents a day per child.

This direct approach does more than ensure a child of basic nutrition, it encourages parents to send their children to school, especially girls in countries where their education is not a priority. Take-home rations for the rest of the family is an added incentive. In Pakistan, this increased enrollment of girls by 247 percent over four years; in Morocco, enrollment of girls doubled the first year. Why this program does not have the resources to expand further is obvious – no corruption opportunities for governments, no subsidies for agriculture industries, no shopping sprees for summit delegates.