News

Worth reading

Thought-provoking articles that deal with hunger and the issues involved in meeting the hunger challenge.

9 October 2011

America’s Call for Mutual Accountability

(..) I will give you few examples of how we are moving aggressively into that space. We have launched a partnership with PepsiCo and the World Food Program (WFP) to reach tens of thousands of Ethiopian chick pea farmers create a product the WFP can purchase for use in supplementary feeding programs throughout the Horn of Africa and elsewhere in the world.

Fortune

22 September 2011

NEPAL: Gender discrimination fuels malnutrition

Gender discrimination lies behind much of the malnutrition found in under-five children in Nepal, say locals and experts. (..) "Malnutrition in Nepal is an intergenerational cycle,” said Sophiya Uprety, a nutritionist for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Kathmandu. She explained that supporting pregnant women with a nutritious and adequate diet, rest and care did more than improve a person’s strength - it bolstered society as well.

IRIN

1 September 2011

The G20 response to the food crisis of 2011 needs better politics and greater ambition

The G20 response to the food crisis of 2011 needs better politics and greater ambition. Are we in the middle of a world food crisis, or aren’t we? Yes, we are – but the political impetus is less than last time, in 2008, and the response inadequate.

Simon Maxwell Blog

13 May 2011

To Survive Famine, Will Work for Insurance

How much would it cost to prevent a famine? We don’t know exactly, but one answer is surely this: Much less than it would cost to save lives after famine hits. The relief group Oxfam estimates that emergency relief in famines costs seven times as much as preventing the disaster to begin with.

New York Times

13 April 2011

The Errors of Malthus

When the world’s population was several million fewer than the total number of Indians in the world today, Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus predicted that unchecked population growth would lead to famine, starvation and high rates of death. As countries release their updated population numbers—the United States did so in December, India did so last month, and China’s numbers should be coming out this month—it’s interesting to look back at his forecast, even though technological advances like vaccines, the pill, antibiotics and tractors in the intervening two centuries have so far prevented it from coming true.

The Wall Street Journal