On Resilience
Remembering Don Kennedy, Human Biologist
Don Kennedy, who passed away four years ago, was founder of the unique Human Biology program at Stanford University, where he served as a role model as arguably the most influential teacher of his generation, particularly teaching about intersections of biology, ecology and policies. In addition...
Why Nations Fail, Famine and the Nobel Prize
The 2024 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded in October to the authors Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in part for the analysis of international inequalities in their best-selling 2012 book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (Crown Publishers), which arr...
BOOK REVIEW: The Enduring Struggle: The History of the U.S. Agency for International Development and America’s Uneasy Transformation of the World
BOOK REVIEW: The Enduring Struggle: The History of the U.S. Agency for International Development and America’s Uneasy Transformation of the World, by John Norris. 2021. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publisher. America's primary international assista...
The World Can Feed Itself – It Needs the Will
In this opinion piece, Dominic MacSorley, former CEO of Concern Worldwide writes from the Sudan about the world hunger situation. He says: "Gaza and Ukraine have been most prominent in the public eye but they form only a fraction of the 117 million people experiencing acute food insecurity as ...
“Love and Liberation” Captures Voices of Local Aid Workers in Famine Zone
Lauren Carruth's important 2021 book, Love and Liberation - Humanitarian Work in Ethiopia's Somali Region (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press) fills a gap in the literature about aid programs by listening to the perspectives of those personnel delivering aid o...
Hunger is Inevitable Result of Massive Earthquake in Turkey and Syria
The double impact of two strong and close earthquakes in southwest Turkey and northern Syria has paralyzed infrastructure and food systems. The earthquakes affected millions of people; hunger due to lack of access to food is inevitable, worse, the winter temperatures require a greater caloric in...
Resilience Book Review: Ending Hunger – The Quest to Feed the World without Destroying It
Anthony Warner's 2022 book "Ending Hunger - the Quest to Feed the World Without Destroying it" (Oneworld Press) attempts to challenge the myths he sees in social discourse in developed countries about how to address world food problems. Based on his popular blog "the Angr...
Hunger in Niger
Niger is one of the countries within the Sahel region on the southern border of the great Sahara Desert in West Africa. Niger rests directly north of Nigeria, and is home to over 24 million people. As the country enters April which this year is the month of Ramadan, it is sobering to observe the...
Assistance to Press Freedom can Fight Famine
“in the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press” - Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate and author of...
Documentary Looks Back at Norman Borlaug’s Career
A recent documentary available from the Public Broadcast System (PBS) and WGBH "The Man Who Tried to Feed the World" (2020) briefly surveys the motivations and achievem...