Author: WHES

The socio-political and governance dimensions of hunger: Exploring Ethiopia’s crisis

Food insecurity is one of the most pressing humanitarian issues in the Horn of Africa, and the situation is expected to deteriorate further over the coming months. Ethiopia, in particular, is faced with a massive crisis. According to the European Commission, “[t]he situation in Ethiopia is at present the most alarming, where the number of food insecure people has increased from 2.9 million at the beginning of the year to 8.2 million by early October. It is foreseen that these numbers will further rise up to 15 million by the end of 2015.

Undocumented youth are here through no fault of their own. But it’s not their parents’ fault, either. Using the phrase “no fault of their own” in discussing undocumented young people does not encourage us to look at the roots of the poverty and violence their families experience.

When President Obama introduced his executive order in 2012 to defer deportation for young people (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA), the White House website said it would “stop punishing innocent young people brought to the country through no fault of their own by their parents.”

Women’s progress outdid China’s one-child policy

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — THE abandonment of the one-child policy in China is a momentous change, and there is much to celebrate in the easing of restrictions on human freedom in a particularly private sphere of life. But we need to recognize that the big fall in fertility in China over the decades, for which the one-child policy is often credited, has, in fact, been less related to compulsion and much more to reasoned family decisions in favor of a new norm of smaller families.

A closer look at advancing world food security. In agriculture, our free trade and commodity export agendas conflict with our development agenda, and the result is food insecurity. Here is the case for a change in focus.

World food security is rightly a high priority for the United States. While the large U.S. commodity sector and industrial agriculture clearly reap the benefits of our commodity food aid, support of global trade and export promotion, such short-term “aid” does not help other countries to develop their own food security. In fact, as it stands, our free trade and commodity export agendas are in conflict with our development agenda—and this conflict ultimately leads to food dependency, not food security.

“Miracle-makers” IMF, World Bank found wearing no clothes at Lima Annual Meetings

Last October 9-11 the World Bank and IMF Governors met in Lima, Peru, for their Annual Meetings. For those who do not follow the meetings closely, the World Bank and IMF Governors meet every year but only once every three years in a location outside Washington DC. The last time the meetings were held in a Latin American country was in 1967 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).

A tale of two food prizes

What’s in a prize? The politics of distribution versus growth.

On October 14th in Des Moines, Iowa, the Food Sovereignty Prize will be awarded to the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, run by African-American farmers of the southern United States and to OFRANEH—the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña).

Global goals must fight the poor nutrition that kills 3 million children every year. The sustainable development goals need to reflect the complex causes of malnutrition in order to tackle one of the world’s foremost health challenges.

One of the final acts in the lengthy process of creating a new set of global sustainable development goals (SDGs) was completed last weekend when world leaders formally adopted 17 goals and 169 targets. But for those of us who seek to tackle the world’s collective failing in ensuring adequate nutrition for all, the battle is just beginning.