Dot-Mom:
Quality and Quanitity: The State of the World’s Midwifery in 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Each year, 350,000 women die while pregnant or giving birth, as many as two million newborns die within the first 24 hours of life, and there are 2.6 million stillbirths. Sadly, the majority of these deaths could be prevented if poor and marginalized women in developing countries had access to adequate health facilities and qualified health professionals. In fact, according to the new UNFPA report, State of the World’s Midwifery 2011: Delivering Health, Saving Lives, just doubling the current number of midwives in the 58 countries highlighted in the report could avert 21 percent of maternal, fetal, and newborn deaths.
Launched last week, the report is the first of its kind, using new data from 58 low-income countries with high burdens of maternal and neonatal mortality to highlight the challenges and opportunities for developing an effective midwifery workforce.
“Developing quality midwifery services should be an essential component of all strategies aimed at improving maternal and newborn health,” write the authors of the report. Qualified midwives ensure a continuum of essential care throughout pregnancy and birth, and midwives can help facilitate referrals of mothers and newborns to hospitals or specialists when needed:
To help overcome these challenges, the report outlines a number of “bold steps” to be taken by governments, regulatory bodies, schools, professional associations, NGOs, and donor agencies in order to maximize the impact of investments, improve mutual accountability, and strengthen the midwifery workforce and services. Of course, the needs of each country are unique, and the report ends with individual country profiles that highlight country-specific maternal and neonatal health indicators.
While this report does much to highlight the critical importance of midwives in promoting the health and survival of mothers and newborns, real impact will only come when governments, communities, civil society, and development partners work together to implement these recommendations.
Sources: UNFPA.
Video Credit: UNFPA.
“Developing quality midwifery services should be an essential component of all strategies aimed at improving maternal and newborn health,” write the authors of the report. Qualified midwives ensure a continuum of essential care throughout pregnancy and birth, and midwives can help facilitate referrals of mothers and newborns to hospitals or specialists when needed:
Unless an additional 112,000 midwives are trained, deployed, and retained in supportive environments, 38 of 58 countries surveyed might not met their target to achieve 95 per cent coverage of births by skilled attendants by 2015, as required by Millennium Development Goal 5.There is a total shortage of 350,000 skilled midwives globally, with some countries, like Chad and Haiti, needing a tenfold increase to match demand, according to the report. But quantity isn’t the only issue; there has also been an insufficient focus on quality of care. Additionally, most countries do not have the capacity to accurately measure the number of practicing midwives, and national policies focusing on maternal and newborn health services often do not view midwifery services as a priority.
To help overcome these challenges, the report outlines a number of “bold steps” to be taken by governments, regulatory bodies, schools, professional associations, NGOs, and donor agencies in order to maximize the impact of investments, improve mutual accountability, and strengthen the midwifery workforce and services. Of course, the needs of each country are unique, and the report ends with individual country profiles that highlight country-specific maternal and neonatal health indicators.
While this report does much to highlight the critical importance of midwives in promoting the health and survival of mothers and newborns, real impact will only come when governments, communities, civil society, and development partners work together to implement these recommendations.
Sources: UNFPA.
Video Credit: UNFPA.
Reading Radar:
Nepal to East Africa: Population, Health, and Environment Programs Compared
Thursday, June 30, 2011
In “Linking Population, Health, and the Environment: An Overview of Integrated Programs and a Case Study in Nepal” from the Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, Sigrid Hahn, Natasha Anandaraja, and Leona D’Agnes provide both a broad survey of the structure and content of programs using the PHE method and an in-depth case study of a successful initiative in Nepal. Hahn et al. praise the Nepalese program for simultaneously addressing deforestation from fuel-wood harvesting, indoor air pollution from wood fires, acute respiratory infections related to smoke inhalation, as well as family planning in Nepal’s densely populated forest corridors. “The population, health, and environment approach can be an effective method for achieving sustainable development and meeting both conservation and health objectives,” the authors conclude. In particular, one benefit of cross-sectoral natural resource and development programs is the inclusion of men and adolescent boys typically overlooked by strictly family planning programs.
In FOCUS
Coffee and Community: Combining Agribusiness and Health in Rwanda
Irene Kitzantides
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Download FOCUS Issue 22: “Coffee and Community: Combining Agribusiness and Health in Rwanda,” from the Wilson Center.
Rwanda, “the land of a thousand hills,” is also the land of 10 million people, making it the most densely populated country in Africa. Rwandans depend on ever-smaller plots of land for their food and livelihoods, leading to poverty, soil infertility, and food insecurity. Could Rwanda’s burgeoning specialty coffee industry hold the key to the country’s rebirth, reconciliation, and sustainable development?
In the latest issue of ESCP’s FOCUS series, author Irene Kitzantides describes the SPREAD Project’s integration of agribusiness development with community health care and education, including family planning. She outlines the project’s successes and challenges in its efforts to simultaneously improve both the lives and livelihoods of coffee farmers and their families.
Rwanda, “the land of a thousand hills,” is also the land of 10 million people, making it the most densely populated country in Africa. Rwandans depend on ever-smaller plots of land for their food and livelihoods, leading to poverty, soil infertility, and food insecurity. Could Rwanda’s burgeoning specialty coffee industry hold the key to the country’s rebirth, reconciliation, and sustainable development?
In the latest issue of ESCP’s FOCUS series, author Irene Kitzantides describes the SPREAD Project’s integration of agribusiness development with community health care and education, including family planning. She outlines the project’s successes and challenges in its efforts to simultaneously improve both the lives and livelihoods of coffee farmers and their families.
Beat on the Ground: Ecological Tourism and Development in Chi Phat, Cambodia
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
The project has been featured in The New York Times and since its inclusion in the Lonely Planet travel guide, has become a destination for backpackers looking to leave the beaten path. I recently visited the project after spending time in neighboring Vietnam and was struck by the contrast between the densely populated and urbanized Mekong Delta and the visibility of rural poverty in Cambodia.
“Cambodia’s contemporary poverty is largely a legacy of over twenty years of political conflict,” reads a 2006 World Bank Poverty Assessment. The Pol Pot regime’s agrarian collectivization forced millions into the countryside and as a result, even in today’s predominantly-urban world, Cambodia remains 78 percent rural. Today 93 percent of Cambodia’s poor live in rural areas, two thirds of rural people face food shortages, and maternal and reproductive health outcomes in the country lag far behind those in the cities. Chi Phat and the sparsely populated northeast have over ten or twenty times the rate of maternal deaths of Phnom Penh.
A Town Transformed
Before Wildlife Alliance began the Community-Based Ecotourism (CBET) project in Chi Phat, most villagers made a living by slash-and-burn farming, illegal logging, and poaching endangered wildlife. Wildlife Alliance Founder and CEO Suwanna Gauntlett described the ecological zone around the town as “a circle of death,” in an audio interview with New Security Beat last year.
One villager, Moa Sarun, described to me how he went from poacher and slash-and-burn farmer, to tour guide, and finally, chief accountant:
Since I have started working with CBET, I realize that the wildlife and forest can attract a lot of tourists and bring a lot of income to villagers in Chi Phat commune. I feel very regretful for what I have done in the past as the poacher…I know clearly the aim of CBET is to alleviate the poverty of local people in Chi Phat, so I am very happy to see people in Chi Phat have jobs and better livelihoods since the project has established.It’s hard to imagine what the town would have looked like before Wildlife Alliance arrived. The visitor center, restaurant, and “pub” (really, a concrete patio with plastic chairs and a cooler filled with beer), together make up nearly half of the town’s establishments. For two dollars a night, I stayed in a homestay and lived as the locals do on a thin mattress under mosquito netting, with a bucket of cold water by the outhouse for a shower, and a car battery if I wanted to use the fan or light (but not both). These amenities place Chi Phat above average for rural Cambodia. According to 2008 World Bank data, only 18 percent of rural areas had access to improved sanitation and only 56 percent had access to an improved water source.
Poaching Persists
Real change has certainly hit Chi Phat, but illegal activities persist, as a Wall Street Journal review of the project noted. In one Wildlife Alliance survey, 95 percent of members participating in the project made less than 80 percent of their previous income and 12 percent of people made less than 50 percent. “That, to me, is a red flag,” Director of U.S. Operations Michael Zwirn acknowledged to me. Nevertheless, he said “it is well documented that it’s the most lucrative community-based ecotourism project in Cambodia. That doesn’t mean that everyone is making money, or that they’re making enough money, but the community is clearly benefiting.”
Harold de Martimprey, Wildlife Alliance’s community-based ecotourism project manager, told me in an email interview:
We monitor closely the impact of the CBET project on the diminution of poaching and deforestation. We estimate that since the beginning of the project, the illegal activities have decreased by almost 70 percent.
After four years, Chi Phat has already developed enough to operate financially on its own. Wildlife Alliance will stop funding the project later this year and transition it towards total self-sustainability. The plan is to then ramp up efforts at a neighboring project in Trapeang Ruong, due to open to the public next month.
A Land of Opportunity
So far Chi Phat lacks much of what do-gooder tourists are hoping to find when they come in search of ecotourism. There is little to no information about the work of Wildlife Alliance and how ecotourism benefits the town, or the health, education, and economic benefits the villagers have received. A little more obvious justification for ecotourism’s inflated prices might appease the average backpacker used to exploitatively lower prices elsewhere in the country. The guides, staff, and host families for the most part speak little English, which does not bode well for its tourism potential. “This is a work in progress,” said de Martimprey.
Most of my time in Chi Phat, I felt like the only foreigner to ever set foot in the town – refreshing after witnessing much of the rest of Southeast Asia’s crowded backpacker scene. As Chi Phat continues to grow, hopefully it will “bring in enough people to support the community without the adverse effects of tourism,” said Zwirn. “They don’t want it to turn into the Galapagos.” Thankfully, de Martimprey told me, “Chi Phat is far from reaching this limit and can be scaled up to much bigger operation,” without negatively impacting the environment.
Luckily, plans to build a highly destructive titanium mine near the town were recently nixed by Prime Minister Hun Sen in what was an unexpected victory over industrial interests. However, soon after, the town was again under threat – this time by a proposed banana plantation nearby.
“The Cardamom Mountains are still seen as a land of opportunity for economic land concessions for some not-so-green investors looking at buying land for different purposes, and often disregarding the interest of the local people,” said de Martimprey.
Eventually Zwirn hopes that as more tourists come to the Cardamoms, they will become “a constituency for conservation,” he said. “We need to build a worldwide awareness of the Cardamoms as a destination, and as a place worth saving.”
Sources: BBC, IFAD, Phnom Penh Post, New York Times, United Nations, Wall Street Journal, Wildlife Alliance, World Bank, World Wildlife Fund.
Photo Credit: Hannah Marqusee.
Watch: Demographic Security 101 With Elizabeth Leahy Madsen
Monday, June 27, 2011
“Today we are in an era of unprecedented demographic divergence, with population trends moving simultaneously in different directions. Some countries are beginning to experience population decline, while others continue to grow rapidly,” says Elizabeth Leahy Madsen, formerly the senior research associate at Population Action International (PAI). In this primer video from ECSP, Madsen explains how global demographic trends affect economic development, national security, and foreign policy.
Three forces drive demographic change:
Demographic projections are based on this history but also assume some convergence toward a common fertility rate (at or below replacement level). The UN projects thousands of different scenarios to come up with high, medium, low, and constant-fertility estimates for each country. For example, the constant fertility estimate for Nigeria, which assumes no change in current total fertility rate (5.61), puts population in 2050 at 504 million. But the medium variant projection, which assumes total fertility rate will fall to 3.2 by 2050, estimates a population of 390 million.
Youth and Capacity Building
“These figures provoke an important question,” says Madsen. “Do these governments have sufficient resources and sufficient willpower to provide for populations that are growing this quickly? And if not, are they likely to reach that capacity in the coming decades?”
“Today we have the largest generation of young people in history, with more than half the world’s population under 30. The vast majority of youth live in developing countries where they will continue to comprise the largest share of the population. The opportunities that are available or not available to these young people will determine their country’s futures.”
Understanding age structure can help us understand trends in governance, democracy, and civil instability. “In a country with a large youthful population, there’s little opportunity cost to joining a rebel group because there are few other alternatives and this facilitates recruitment,” says Madsen.
Adding an Arrow to the Analytical Quiver
Madsen cites the work of demographer Richard Cincotta, who has developed a model for predicting when a country is more likely to start to transition to a liberal democracy based on a historical analysis of age structure and previous transitions. Cincotta’s model predicted that Tunisia would begin such a transition this year, but the still-youthful population age structure of other Middle Eastern countries agitating for change, such as Egypt and Yemen, make a successful transition less likely or very unlikely.
“Demographic analysis, in combination with other political and economic factors, helps identify countries at risk,” Madsen explains. PAI found that 80 percent of all new civil conflict between 1970 and 2007 occurred in countries with at least 60 percent of the population under age 30.
Though Madsen cautions that age structure is never a sole factor for conflict, it does encompass a great many other indicators. And “unlike other social sciences, demography allows for a fairly informed projection into the future,” she says, which makes it a very useful tool for analysts.
“Population trends pressure governments and can facilitate the opportunities and motivation for participation in insurgency,” Madsen concludes. “To counter this, governments needs to scale up the provision of education and jobs for young people. This will be a challenge for many countries, which suggests that demographic projections should be an important component of development and foreign policy planning.”
Sources: UN Population Division.
Three forces drive demographic change:
- Fertility, which is the average number of children born to each woman, and has the greatest impact on demographic trends;
- Mortality, which fortunately has declined enough worldwide, so now most children survive to reach adulthood; and,
- Migration, which has much lower global impact on population size than fertility and mortality, but can have a larger impact at the local level.
Demographic projections are based on this history but also assume some convergence toward a common fertility rate (at or below replacement level). The UN projects thousands of different scenarios to come up with high, medium, low, and constant-fertility estimates for each country. For example, the constant fertility estimate for Nigeria, which assumes no change in current total fertility rate (5.61), puts population in 2050 at 504 million. But the medium variant projection, which assumes total fertility rate will fall to 3.2 by 2050, estimates a population of 390 million.
Youth and Capacity Building
“These figures provoke an important question,” says Madsen. “Do these governments have sufficient resources and sufficient willpower to provide for populations that are growing this quickly? And if not, are they likely to reach that capacity in the coming decades?”
“Today we have the largest generation of young people in history, with more than half the world’s population under 30. The vast majority of youth live in developing countries where they will continue to comprise the largest share of the population. The opportunities that are available or not available to these young people will determine their country’s futures.”
Understanding age structure can help us understand trends in governance, democracy, and civil instability. “In a country with a large youthful population, there’s little opportunity cost to joining a rebel group because there are few other alternatives and this facilitates recruitment,” says Madsen.
Adding an Arrow to the Analytical Quiver
Madsen cites the work of demographer Richard Cincotta, who has developed a model for predicting when a country is more likely to start to transition to a liberal democracy based on a historical analysis of age structure and previous transitions. Cincotta’s model predicted that Tunisia would begin such a transition this year, but the still-youthful population age structure of other Middle Eastern countries agitating for change, such as Egypt and Yemen, make a successful transition less likely or very unlikely.
“Demographic analysis, in combination with other political and economic factors, helps identify countries at risk,” Madsen explains. PAI found that 80 percent of all new civil conflict between 1970 and 2007 occurred in countries with at least 60 percent of the population under age 30.
Though Madsen cautions that age structure is never a sole factor for conflict, it does encompass a great many other indicators. And “unlike other social sciences, demography allows for a fairly informed projection into the future,” she says, which makes it a very useful tool for analysts.
“Population trends pressure governments and can facilitate the opportunities and motivation for participation in insurgency,” Madsen concludes. “To counter this, governments needs to scale up the provision of education and jobs for young people. This will be a challenge for many countries, which suggests that demographic projections should be an important component of development and foreign policy planning.”
Sources: UN Population Division.
Why Fund Both Farm Subsidies and Foreign Aid?
Tate Watkins, Short Sentences
Monday, June 27, 2011
The USDA routinely disburses $10 billion to $30 billion a year in farm subsidies. President Obama has allocated $47 billion for the State Department and USAID for the next fiscal year (not including proposed expenditures for Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan).*
Why does the U.S. simultaneously fund domestic agricultural subsidies and foreign aid? The policies oppose each other. When it comes to promoting development opportunities for farmers around the globe, one of USAID’s ostensible goals, the left hand of the U.S. binds its right.
The origin of agricultural subsidies goes back at least to the first Agricultural Adjustment Act, enacted in 1933 as an attempt to help Depression farmers cope. Today farm interests justify subsidies in name of food security or, since 9/11, national security. But it’s widely acknowledged that the pastoral American family farmer, the image that farm interests present to the American people when the merits of subsidies are debated, do not benefit most from agricultural subsidies. Large corporate farmers do.
Continue reading on Short Sentences.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “YM009180,” courtesy of flickr user tpmartins, and “Badam Bagh Farm,” courtesy of flickr user U.S. Embassy Kabul Afghanistan.
From the Wilson Center:
Watch Dialogue TV on the Future of Women and the Arab Spring
Friday, June 24, 2011
Moushira Khattab is a human rights activist who formerly served as Minister of Family and Population for Egypt. She also served as Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vice Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and was Egypt’s ambassador to South Africa during the Mandela era. Lilia Labidi is an anthropologist and professor at the University of Tunis who currently serves as Minister of Women’s Affairs in the Republic of Tunisia. Previously she was a visiting professor at the American University in Cairo and a fellow at the Wilson Center. Haleh Esfandiari is author of the book, My Prison My Home: One Women’s Story of Captivity in Iran. Haleh serves as the director of the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program.
Dialogue is an award-winning co-production of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and MHz Networks that explores the world of ideas through conversations with renowned public figures, scholars, journalists, and authors. The show is also available throughout the United States on MHz Networks, via broadcast and cable affiliates, as well as via DirecTV and WorldTV (G19) satellite.
Find out where to watch Dialogue where you live via MHz Networks. You can send questions or comments on the program to dialogue@wilsoncenter.org.
A Death Foretold
Scott Wallace, National Geographic
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Late last month the Brazilian Congress passed a bill that if it becomes law would ease restrictions on rain-forest clearing and make it easier than ever to mow down the Amazon. That same day, 800 miles north of the parliamentary chamber in Brasilia, assailants ambushed and killed a married couple whose opposition to environmental crimes had placed them in the crosshairs of those who most stand to gain from the new legislation.
It’s a nauseatingly familiar story. Over the past 20 years, there have been more than 1,200 murders related to land conflict in Brazil’s Amazon region. Most of the victims, like the married activists Zé Claudio Ribeiro and Maria do Espírito Santo, were defenders of the rain forest – people seeking sustainable alternatives to the plunder-for-profit schemes that characterize much of what passes for “development” in the Amazon.
The state of Pará – where Zé Claudio and Maria were ambushed on their motorbike as they crossed a rickety bridge – holds an especially notorious reputation for environmental destruction and organized violence. Pará is the bloodiest state in Brazil, accounting for nearly half of all land-related deaths in recent decades. It sprawls across an area larger than the states of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico combined. Picture a tropical version of the Wild West, stripped of the romance, where loggers and ranchers muscle their way onto public land as though they own the place and impose a law of the jungle with their hired thugs. Those who have the nerve to protest soon find themselves the targets of escalating threats. If they persist, they find themselves staring down the gun barrels of those come to make good on the threats.
Continue reading on National Geographic.
Photo Credit: “Toras,” courtesy of flickr user c.alberto.
Women in Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development and World Hunger
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
“Women are farmers, workers, and entrepreneurs, but almost everywhere they face more severe constraints than men in accessing productive resources, markets, and services,” write the authors. “This ‘gender gap’ hinders their productivity and reduces their contributions to the agriculture sector and to the achievement of broader economic and social development goals.”
Barriers to Productivity
Globally, women comprise 43 percent of the agricultural labor force, ranging from 20 percent in Latin America to 50 percent in southeastern and eastern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, according to the report. But despite their significant global presence, female farmers face gender-specific constraints that hinder access to productive resources, financial support, information, and services required to be viable and competitive. “The yield gap between men and women averages around 20 to 30 percent, and most research finds that the gap is due to differences in resource use,” write the authors.
Generally, women are more likely than men to hold lower-wage, part-time, or seasonal positions and tend to get paid less even when they are more qualified. Furthermore, domestic and occupational lines are blurred for women, who are often not compensated for work that is closely related to domestic food preparation. Most significantly for agricultural productivity, women across the developing world often lack access to quality land, sometimes being barred from land ownership. This ban precludes female farmers from exercising managerial discretion over farming activities, such as entering contract farming agreements. Women also generally own less livestock and contract for less labor – two crucial assets for marketable agricultural production in many developing countries. Moreover, because of insufficient land and resources, women farmers are also more vulnerable to climate shocks.
Resource barriers for female farmers extend to education, finance, and technology as well. The authors observe that “female household heads in rural areas are disadvantaged with respect to human capital accumulation in most developing countries, regardless of region or level of economic development,” which represents a historical bias against females in education. Despite notable success observed in finance projects involving female farmers, gender bias exists in the financial system, which prevents women from bearing initial financial risk in order to increase long-term productivity gains. Sources of gender bias in the financial sector include legal barriers, cultural norms, lack of collateral, and institutional discrimination by public and private lenders. Due to the aforementioned lack of credit, labor, and education, women farmers are deficient in all aspects of technology, such as the acquisition of new equipment, information about new seed varietals and animal breeds, pest control measures, and management techniques.
Global Implications
Closing the gender gap could have profound implications for easing world hunger. According to the FAO, approximately 925 million people are currently undernourished, most of whom live in developing countries. If women were given all the inputs and support as men, agricultural output could increase by 2.5 to 4 percent in developing countries, potentially reducing the world’s hungry by 100 to 150 million people. “This report clearly confirms that the Millennium Development Goals on gender equality (MDG 3) and poverty and food security (MDG 1) are mutually reinforcing,” FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf argues in his introductory remarks.
Increasing the economic viability of women farmers may also translate into better infant and child health indicators – when women control additional income, they tend to allocate more of their earnings toward the health and well-being of their children. Closing the agricultural gap is “a proven strategy for enhancing the food security, nutrition, education, and health of children,” Diouf asserted. “Better fed, healthier children learn better and become more productive citizens. The benefits would span generations and pay large dividends in the future.”
Finally, the FAO notes that in addition to reducing child mortality rates, increasing female education and economic prosperity helps lower fertility rates, which over time increases human capital and can help drive a demographic transition towards lower dependency rates and higher per capita growth.
Closing the Gender Gap
“The conclusions are clear,” write the authors:
1) Gender equality is good for agriculture, food security, and society; andThough they note that “no simple ‘blueprint’ exists for achieving gender equality in agriculture,” the authors do recommend some basic principles to the development community, including working towards eliminating discrimination against women under the law, strengthening rural institutions and making them gender-aware, freeing women for more rewarding and productive activities, building the human capital of women and girls, bundling interventions, improving the collection and analysis of sex-disaggregated data, and making gender-aware agricultural policy decisions.
2) Governments, civil society, the private sector and individuals, working together, can support gender equality in agriculture and rural areas
Recognizing that “women will be a pivotal force behind achieving a food secure world,” the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has actually launched initiatives aimed directly at closing the gender gap. The Feed the Future initiative, announced last spring, includes a heavy focus on gender equity and integration with small-scale farming initiatives. For example, the Office of Women in Development is supporting a three-year project in Liberia, “Integrated Agriculture for Women’s Empowerment,” that aims to train and support 1,500 small farmers in Lofa county, two-thirds of whom are women. And in Rwanda, USAID helped the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources – headed by Dr. Agnes Kalibata – develop a national investment plan, which has been successful in bringing in donor support.
However, the FAO report does not offer specific feedback on programs like Feed the Future, which is arguably a crucial component of a truly comprehensive assessment on the current state of agriculture. Though they write that the State of Food Agriculture series is intended to simply be “science-based assessments of important issues,” the infancy of these food security efforts and the immediacy of the problems examined (see recent food price instability) creates an excellent opportunity for critical input. “Women in Agriculture” offers perhaps the most comprehensive report on the gender gap and development to date, but more specific critiques on the current efforts of USAID and others might make more of an impact in a field where the issues at play have been fairly clearly enumerated many times before.
Sources: Food and Agriculture Organization, The Hunger Project, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Population Action International, USAID.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “Ngurumo Village-Ntakira (Kenya),” courtesy of flickr user CGIAR Climate.
Food Security in Kenya’s Yala Swamp
Tim Siegenbeek van Heukelom, State-of-Affairs
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
The original version of this article, by Tim Siegenbeek van Heukelom, appeared on State-of-Affairs.
In West Kenya on the Northeastern shore of Lake Victoria, the Yala swamp wetland is one of Kenya’s biodiversity hotspots. The Yala swamp also supports several communities that utilize the wetland’s natural resources to support their families and secure their livelihoods. Even more, many people recognize the swamp’s extraordinary potential as agricultural land to significantly boost Kenya’s food security. These are three widely diverse interests, which may seem to be difficult to reconcile. Yet, with proper management, sufficient investment and effective communication, a differentiated utilization of the Yala swamp can be realized through a system of multiple land use. This will be a difficult but certainly not unrealistic objective.
A Brief History
The most recent development of the Yala swamp was undertaken by Dominion Farms, a subsidiary of a privately held company from the United States investing in agricultural development. The reclamation and development of the swamp, however, is far from a new phenomenon.
The intention of the Kenyan government to transform parts of the Yala swamp into agricultural land for food production goes back as far as the early 1970s. Around that time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands was consulted extensively by the Kenyan government for technical assistance on reclamation of the swamp and the feasibility of agricultural production.
Throughout the 1980s numerous reports were commissioned by the Kenyan Ministry for Energy and Regional Development and the Lake Basin Development Authority to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Reports like the “Yala Integrated Development Plan” and the “Yala Swamp Reclamation and Development Project” focused in depth on the potential of the development of the swamp and made recommendations on practical matters, such as drainage and irrigation, soil analysis, agriculture, marketing, environmental aspects, employment opportunities, human settlement, management, and financial planning.
As a result, small-scale reclamation and development of the swamp land was undertaken throughout the 1980s and 1990s under the supervision of the Lake Basin Development Authority. The development of the swamp was partially successful, yet its scale was small and financial benefits were too marginal. Major investment was therefore required to extend the scale of the project.
Then, in 2003, an American investor expressed interest to make significant long-term investments into bringing parts of the swamp into agricultural production. Subsequently, a lease for 45 years was negotiated between Dominion Farms and the Siaya and Bondo County Councils to bring into agricultural production some 7,000 hectares of the Yala swamp. The whole Yala swamp wetland covers 17,500 hectares, which means that Dominion Farms is allowed to reclaim and develop roughly 40 percent of the swamp.
Protracted Conflict
Since the early days of the arrival of the foreign investor in 2004, there has been lingering tension and occasional flares of conflict between the communities surrounding the project site, third parties (i.e. government officials, politicians, NGOs, CBOs, environmentalists), and the investor.
The most commonly touted complaint is that Dominion Farms “grabbed” the communities’ land. While it is hard to trace back the exact procedures and individuals that were involved, there are clear contracts with the Siaya and Bondo County Councils that substantiate the transfer of land-use to Dominion Farms for a period of 45 years. Some claim, however, that the negotiation process for the lease was entrenched in bribery and corruption, yet no one has been able to show this author a single trace of evidence to substantiate these accusations. Similarly, there are complaints by local residents that they were never consulted in the negotiation process – where they should have been, as they rightly point out that the swamp is community trust land. However, the land is held in trust by the relevant county council for the community. The county council should therefore initiate consultations with the local communities and residents to get their approval to lease the land to third parties. So it appears that some of the resentment over the loss of parts of the swamp should not be directed at the foreign investor but rather target the local county council and their procedures.
Continue reading on State-of-Affairs.
In West Kenya on the Northeastern shore of Lake Victoria, the Yala swamp wetland is one of Kenya’s biodiversity hotspots. The Yala swamp also supports several communities that utilize the wetland’s natural resources to support their families and secure their livelihoods. Even more, many people recognize the swamp’s extraordinary potential as agricultural land to significantly boost Kenya’s food security. These are three widely diverse interests, which may seem to be difficult to reconcile. Yet, with proper management, sufficient investment and effective communication, a differentiated utilization of the Yala swamp can be realized through a system of multiple land use. This will be a difficult but certainly not unrealistic objective.
A Brief History
The most recent development of the Yala swamp was undertaken by Dominion Farms, a subsidiary of a privately held company from the United States investing in agricultural development. The reclamation and development of the swamp, however, is far from a new phenomenon.
The intention of the Kenyan government to transform parts of the Yala swamp into agricultural land for food production goes back as far as the early 1970s. Around that time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands was consulted extensively by the Kenyan government for technical assistance on reclamation of the swamp and the feasibility of agricultural production.
Throughout the 1980s numerous reports were commissioned by the Kenyan Ministry for Energy and Regional Development and the Lake Basin Development Authority to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Reports like the “Yala Integrated Development Plan” and the “Yala Swamp Reclamation and Development Project” focused in depth on the potential of the development of the swamp and made recommendations on practical matters, such as drainage and irrigation, soil analysis, agriculture, marketing, environmental aspects, employment opportunities, human settlement, management, and financial planning.
As a result, small-scale reclamation and development of the swamp land was undertaken throughout the 1980s and 1990s under the supervision of the Lake Basin Development Authority. The development of the swamp was partially successful, yet its scale was small and financial benefits were too marginal. Major investment was therefore required to extend the scale of the project.
Then, in 2003, an American investor expressed interest to make significant long-term investments into bringing parts of the swamp into agricultural production. Subsequently, a lease for 45 years was negotiated between Dominion Farms and the Siaya and Bondo County Councils to bring into agricultural production some 7,000 hectares of the Yala swamp. The whole Yala swamp wetland covers 17,500 hectares, which means that Dominion Farms is allowed to reclaim and develop roughly 40 percent of the swamp.
Protracted Conflict
Since the early days of the arrival of the foreign investor in 2004, there has been lingering tension and occasional flares of conflict between the communities surrounding the project site, third parties (i.e. government officials, politicians, NGOs, CBOs, environmentalists), and the investor.
The most commonly touted complaint is that Dominion Farms “grabbed” the communities’ land. While it is hard to trace back the exact procedures and individuals that were involved, there are clear contracts with the Siaya and Bondo County Councils that substantiate the transfer of land-use to Dominion Farms for a period of 45 years. Some claim, however, that the negotiation process for the lease was entrenched in bribery and corruption, yet no one has been able to show this author a single trace of evidence to substantiate these accusations. Similarly, there are complaints by local residents that they were never consulted in the negotiation process – where they should have been, as they rightly point out that the swamp is community trust land. However, the land is held in trust by the relevant county council for the community. The county council should therefore initiate consultations with the local communities and residents to get their approval to lease the land to third parties. So it appears that some of the resentment over the loss of parts of the swamp should not be directed at the foreign investor but rather target the local county council and their procedures.
Continue reading on State-of-Affairs.
Topics:
Africa,
agriculture,
biodiversity,
development,
environment,
food security,
Kenya,
land,
water
Eye On:
Watch: Richard Matthew at TEDxChange on Natural Resources, Conflict, and Environmental Peacemaking
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
“It’s not surprising that about half the time, efforts to try to stabilize countries as they come out of war fail,” said Richard Matthew, associate professor at the University of California at Irvine and founding director of the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs, at a recent TEDxChange event. “Wars today are very destructive. They may not be as big as the wars of the last century, but they do a lot of damage.”
Matthew’s work focuses on the environmental dimensions of conflict and peacebuilding. Conflict can be spurred by competition over natural resources but it also contributes to further scarcity in many cases, creating a feedback loop. The natural resource aspect of conflict is particularly important in areas where livelihoods depend directly on access to land, water, and forests, he said.
In addition to discussing the benefits of including the environment in peacemaking efforts, Matthew also touched on the need for an increased proportion of national security spending to be spent on peace and development rather than defense. “It is in our interest to grow people out of the conditions that foster terrorism and extremism and infectious disease and crisis,” he said.
In particular, Matthew remains confident that an emerging group of leaders will find new and creative ways to support peacebuilding, natural resource management, and adaptation activities in the future: “Social entrepreneurs – people willing to combine their passion to make a better world with sound business tools – are developing truly innovative ways of taking daunting social problems and making them manageable.”
Matthew’s work focuses on the environmental dimensions of conflict and peacebuilding. Conflict can be spurred by competition over natural resources but it also contributes to further scarcity in many cases, creating a feedback loop. The natural resource aspect of conflict is particularly important in areas where livelihoods depend directly on access to land, water, and forests, he said.
In addition to discussing the benefits of including the environment in peacemaking efforts, Matthew also touched on the need for an increased proportion of national security spending to be spent on peace and development rather than defense. “It is in our interest to grow people out of the conditions that foster terrorism and extremism and infectious disease and crisis,” he said.
In particular, Matthew remains confident that an emerging group of leaders will find new and creative ways to support peacebuilding, natural resource management, and adaptation activities in the future: “Social entrepreneurs – people willing to combine their passion to make a better world with sound business tools – are developing truly innovative ways of taking daunting social problems and making them manageable.”
You Are Invited: June 21, 2011
Preparing for the Impact of a Changing Climate on U.S. Humanitarian and Disaster Response
Monday, June 20, 2011
The Environmental Change and Security Program
Tuesday, June 21, 2011, 9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m
Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC
6th Floor Flom Auditorium
RSVP Agenda Directions Webcast Follow on Twitter: #climateHDR
Vice Admiral Lee Gunn, USN (Ret.), President of CNA’s Institute for Public Research and Vice Chairman of the CNA Military Advisory Board;
Major General Richard Engel, USAF (Ret.), Director of the Climate Change and State Stability Program of the National Intelligence Council
Julie Kunen, Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor, Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning, U.S. Agency for International Development
E.D. McGrady, Research Analyst, CNA
Marc Cohen, Senior Researcher, Oxfam America
Paul O’Brien, Vice President for Policy and Campaigns, Oxfam America
A light breakfast will be served at 9:00 a.m.
The U.S. will face increasing demands on its international humanitarian response systems due to a changing climate. This panel discussion will address the impacts of slow-onset and rapid-onset climate-related disasters on the U.S. government’s international humanitarian and disaster response systems, including both civilian and military capacity.
To lead off the event, Oxfam America and CNA will release their new report, “An Ounce of Prevention: Preparing for the Impact of a Changing Climate on U.S. Humanitarian and Disaster Response.” The report finds that responding to these climate-induced challenges will require a more effective and smarter approach to disaster and humanitarian assistance. Most important, a coherent, whole-of-government approach to humanitarian assistance is needed, with clear leadership, objectives, and implementation, and strategies with a long-term perspective, especially for disaster prevention and risk reduction, should be brought to center stage.
If you are interested, but unable to attend the event, please tune into the live or archived webcast at www.wilsoncenter.org. The live webcast will begin approximately 10 minutes after the posted meeting time. You will need Windows Media Player to watch the webcast. To download the free player, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download.
Location: Woodrow Wilson Center at the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington DC, USA ("Federal Triangle" stop on Blue/Orange Line), 6th floor Flom auditorium. A map to the Center is available at www.wilsoncenter.org/directions. Note: Due to heightened security, entrance to the building will be restricted and photo identification is required. Please allow additional time to pass through security.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011, 9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m
Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC
6th Floor Flom Auditorium
RSVP Agenda Directions Webcast Follow on Twitter: #climateHDR
Vice Admiral Lee Gunn, USN (Ret.), President of CNA’s Institute for Public Research and Vice Chairman of the CNA Military Advisory Board;
Major General Richard Engel, USAF (Ret.), Director of the Climate Change and State Stability Program of the National Intelligence Council
Julie Kunen, Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor, Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning, U.S. Agency for International Development
E.D. McGrady, Research Analyst, CNA
Marc Cohen, Senior Researcher, Oxfam America
Paul O’Brien, Vice President for Policy and Campaigns, Oxfam America
A light breakfast will be served at 9:00 a.m.
The U.S. will face increasing demands on its international humanitarian response systems due to a changing climate. This panel discussion will address the impacts of slow-onset and rapid-onset climate-related disasters on the U.S. government’s international humanitarian and disaster response systems, including both civilian and military capacity.
To lead off the event, Oxfam America and CNA will release their new report, “An Ounce of Prevention: Preparing for the Impact of a Changing Climate on U.S. Humanitarian and Disaster Response.” The report finds that responding to these climate-induced challenges will require a more effective and smarter approach to disaster and humanitarian assistance. Most important, a coherent, whole-of-government approach to humanitarian assistance is needed, with clear leadership, objectives, and implementation, and strategies with a long-term perspective, especially for disaster prevention and risk reduction, should be brought to center stage.
If you are interested, but unable to attend the event, please tune into the live or archived webcast at www.wilsoncenter.org. The live webcast will begin approximately 10 minutes after the posted meeting time. You will need Windows Media Player to watch the webcast. To download the free player, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download.
Location: Woodrow Wilson Center at the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington DC, USA ("Federal Triangle" stop on Blue/Orange Line), 6th floor Flom auditorium. A map to the Center is available at www.wilsoncenter.org/directions. Note: Due to heightened security, entrance to the building will be restricted and photo identification is required. Please allow additional time to pass through security.
Topics:
You Are Invited
From the Wilson Center:
Enhancing Public Engagement in Climate Change: The 2011 Climate Change Communicators of the Year
Monday, June 20, 2011
Unique Challenges
Pic Walker, director of the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE), added that most discussion focuses on climate change effects that are too broad or distant: “The images that have been used are just not the right images. They are not localized; they are not customized to people so that they can feel the impacts of what’s happening in their communities and what’s happening around their own home. They don’t understand the connection between climate change and their daily lives,” including its economic impacts.
Engaging Tomorrow’s Leaders Today
ACE’s unique outreach program targets high school students around the country. Its presentations pair captivating animations with dynamic live presenters, who play off pop culture to engage students. Matthew Lappe, a program officer at ACE, proudly pointed out that the San Francisco Chronicle called the program a “cross between James Hanson and Lady Gaga.” In the two years since the program began, ACE has given presentations to approximately 86,000 high school students at more than 1,400 high schools nationwide.
Teenagers are an untapped resource for future leaders in climate change, said Walker. However, ACE found that there is no standardized climate change curriculum for teenagers; 54 percent of teenagers would fail a basic climate change science test today, he said. “If someone does not understand the issue, there is no reason to activate on the issue,” said Walker. The presentations are “customized in a way to really hit them where they are at in terms of issues that they are dealing with in their daily lives,” he said.
Unpacking the Political Challenge to the Climate Consensus
Oreskes’ 2010 book Merchants of Doubt, co-authored with Erik Conway, traced the roots of the current skeptic movement to a relatively small group of conservative physicists that coalesced during the ideologically heated days of the Cold War.
“It is clear…that this debate [is] not about the scientific evidence,” she said. It is about “governmental control of markets and of individual liberties and about the truly important and crucial question of when and whether governments should intervene in the marketplace to protect people from dangers,” Oreskes said.
Borrowing tactics from the tobacco industry, the movement focused on “merchantizing doubt,” said Oreskes. Despite the fact that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s statements are consistent with peer-reviewed scientific literature, there is still a movement to challenge its authenticity.
For example, Oreskes pointed out that Republican strategist Frank Luntz, who spearheaded the George W. Bush administration’s policy of centering the climate debate on scientific uncertainty, conceded the validity of climate science. However, in strategy papers, he said the Republican party nevertheless should focus on the margin of error.
A margin of scientific doubt does not justify ignoring these crucial environmental problems, said Oreskes: “Global warming is a bill; and that bill has become due.”
Photo Credit: David Hawxhurst/Wilson Center.
New Oxfam Report Tackles Broken Food System
Friday, June 17, 2011
Despite producing enough food for everyone, one in seven people globally face chronic under-nutrition and almost one billion people are food insecure. Hunger is concentrated within rural areas in developing countries, and within families, women are often disproportionally affected, having serious implications for maternal and child health.
“We face three interlinked challenges in an age of growing crisis: feeding nine billion without wrecking the planet; finding equitable solutions to end disempowerment and injustice; and increasing our collective resilience to shocks and volatility,” write the authors of the report.
A “Perfect Storm” for Hunger
If current trends continue, population growth, natural resource scarcity, and climate change will put increasing stress on the food system in the future and create a “perfect storm” for more hunger, says Oxfam.
In the short term, oil price hikes, extreme weather, and speculative trading in markets have caused food prices to rise. With global population slated to grow to 9.1 billion and the global economy projected to be three times as big, demand for food may increase by as much as 70 percent by 2050. Food scarcity will also be deeply affected by the depletion of other natural resources including water, oil, and land.
According to the report’s predictions, child malnutrition levels in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to grow by 8 million by 2030. This estimate is before taking into account the effects of climate change, which could reduce agricultural yields by 20 to 30 percent in sub-Saharan Africa by 2080. The latest UN Population Division projections over that same time period predict an additional two billion people will be living in the region.
The Broken Food System
Up until now, many governments in developed countries have either ignored rising food prices or made it worse by imposing trade restrictions or encouraging the production of biofuels, says Oxfam. Thirty to fifty percent of all food grown is wasted, at least in part, as the result of poor consumer and business practices in rich countries, write the authors, and national governments are not doing enough to address climate change and manage scarce resources, especially water.
Another major challenge that contributes to global hunger is equitable access to land, technology, and markets, says Oxfam. In Guatemala, for example, less than eight percent of agricultural producers hold almost 80 percent of the land, and in developing countries, despite sharing an equal or larger burden of the work, women account for only 10 to 20 percent of landowners. Large companies, rather than local farmers, make the majority of decisions regarding key resources such as land, water, seeds, and infrastructure, while ignoring the technological needs of small-scale farmers.
“Growing a Better Future”
The report concludes that “from the failing food system to wider social and ecological challenges, the dominant model of development is hitting its limits.” The authors recommend three ways to effectively reduce hunger and fix the broken food system:
1) Make food security a top priority for national and international governing bodies;To make this a reality, write the authors, governments must invest in climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and social protection, while international governance of trade, food aid, financial markets, and climate change must work to reduce risks of future shocks and respond quickly and effectively when shocks do occur. The policies and practices of both governments and businesses should support the needs and interests of small-scale farmers, ensuring access to natural resources, technology, and markets.
2) Support small-scale food producers in developing countries; and
3) Set clear global targets for the equitable distribution of scarce resources.
While not exactly novel or ground-breaking ideas, these reforms certainly are lofty and the report avoids sugarcoating issues of food security, directly calling out governments and the private sector for their role in supporting food injustice. But, some argue that simpler solutions, like promoting fertilizers and new technologies among poor farmers, might be more effective at fighting malnutrition. Others question the validity of the reports assertion that the average food prices will more than double in the next 20 years.
Despite criticisms, this report and the corresponding GROW campaign will hopefully help further highlight the importance of food security and the need to move towards a more sustainable future.
Image Credit: "Thriving in Africa," courtesy of flickr user Gates Foundation.
Reading Radar:
The Implications of Urbanization on Food Security and Child Mortality of the Urban Poor
Thursday, June 16, 2011
In “Urban Area Disadvantage and Under-5 Mortality in Nigeria: The Effect of Rapid Urbanization,” published by Environmental Health Perspectives, authors Diddy Antai and Tahereh Moradi found a significant link between the mortality rate of children under five years of age and a poor and disadvantaged urban environment; such an environment is characterized by poor sanitation, overcrowding, a lack of access to safe water, and high levels of disease-inducing air pollution and hazardous wastes. Although urban living may increase proximity to health care and other social amenities, low- and middle-income countries, such as Nigeria, have overstretched their adaptive capacities and the result is poor health indicators. Antai and Moradi predict that the rapid urbanization of Nigerian cities will bring increased infant mortality, unless individual- and community-based policy interventions are implemented to counter the adverse environmental conditions of deprived areas.
Will Expanding “Human Security” Really Improve People’s Lives?
Jacob Park, Our World 2.0
Thursday, June 16, 2011
To those working in the financial markets, the term “securitization” refers to the financial practice of pooling various types of debt, such as residential mortgages, and repackaging them as products like bonds, etc. And you can bet that most of the 2.5 million pages one gets if one searches for this term on the web probably relate to complex financial markets.
Yet the use of the term “security” is not limited to the financial markets and it appears that the United Nations system and the international community seem to be caught up in its own securitization trend. At the April 2011 65th General Assembly of the United Nations, the General Assembly held an informal debate on the human security concept and why it is important to the UN and the international community.
At this meeting, UN Deputy Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro argued that “in a world where threats could be as sudden and unpredictable as a tsunami or as protracted and unyielding as an oppressive dictatorship, an expanded paradigm of security was needed to encompass the broad range of conditions threatening people’s survival, livelihoods, and dignity.”
In light of the recent triple disaster in Japan and this year’s uprisings in the Arab World, Migiro stated that from “natural disasters and entrenched poverty to outbreaks of conflict and the spread of disease, the dramatic events of recent weeks had underscored the vulnerability of developed and developing countries alike.”
Her views reflect a trend since the 2005 World Summit, where leaders agreed that human security concerned both “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want,” and the definition of human security expanded beyond the traditional military-political paradigm of security to be inclusive of social, energy, and environmental issues.
In fact, a wide range of UN institutions have been active promoting their respective security work; the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in relation to environmental security; the Food and Agricultural Organization in relation to food security; and the United Nations Development Programme/UN Trust Fund for Human Security, among others. (Similarly, the International Energy Agency, founded in response to the 1973/74 oil shocks, today plays an increasingly important role in advising its member countries on energy security.)
Real Solutions or Good Metaphors?
It’s hard to disagree with the expanded definition of security to include a wide range of social, environmental, and human development issues. But toward what ends? What will this diverse focus ultimately lead to?
Perhaps I am being overly pessimistic and need to be more patient for these various security issues to develop as possible policy solutions. However, experience with the term “sustainable development” offers a good illustration of what happens when vague concepts rather than real solutions starts the drive the institutional machinery of global governance.
It seems like at times we’re replacing solutions with metaphors or frames to discuss social, environmental, and human development global concerns. The emerging security narrative feels as if we’re waiting for some military quick fixes; as if there is some special forces unit that can be called upon to get rid of the climate-induced migration problem in the same manner as a special U.S. Navy SEAL team was dispatched to deal with Osama Bin Laden.
Unfortunately, there is a real possibility that these UN programs and initiatives (however worthwhile they may be) on energy security, food security, environmental security, climate security, and human security will attempt to deal with all of these issues at the same time and at the end, risk dealing with none. One thing is certain: more international conferences will be planned on security issues even if it is unclear what real benefits this will provide to the most vulnerable members of the international community, whom this securitization trend is designed to help.
What do you think? Will the securitization of all threats to human life make a difference to “at risk” communities across the globe? Or are we just getting caught up in language and not solutions?
Thoughts? Be sure to follow-up on Our World 2.0 as well.
Jacob Park is an associate professor of business strategy and sustainability at Green Mountain College in Vermont specializing in global environment and business strategy, corporate social responsibility, community-based entrepreneurship, and social innovation.
Photo Credit: “UN Peacekeepers Rescue School Collapse Victims,” courtesy of flickr user United Nations Photo.
From the Wilson Center:
Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
According to Kaufmann, fertility rates among the world’s non-religious have dropped to the lowest rates in recorded human history. On the other hand, fundamentalist women in the developed world continue to have higher fertility rates in spite of increased incomes and education. [Video Below]
Meanwhile, rapid population growth in the developing world – where over 95 percent of people identify with a religion – has led to a more religious world overall, he said. This growth is mostly an “indirect effect” of religiousness, said Kaufmann. “People are not having lots of children because they are religious; what’s happening is you have people who are poor, where the women have low education, who have lots of children, and happen to be religious.” As developing countries go through a demographic transition in which increased incomes and access to education and family planning lead to lower fertility rates, population growth will slow. But, he said, this will not reverse the overall trend.
The polarization of religion, despite rising incomes in the developing world, has caused a rise in fundamentalism worldwide, Kaufmann said. Moderate religions “are to some extent being torn apart by two forces, one of which is secularism, and the other of which is fundamentalism.” Fundamentalist religions, such as Anabaptists, Mormons, Haredi Jews, or Salafi Islamists, have grown rapidly due to their social, and sometimes physical, segregation from mainstream society. The rise in fundamentalism is partly due to “secularism posing a challenge to the established religious order and in a way religion responding and saying, well we actually have to draw some boundaries as to what we believe in because otherwise the religion is going to be eviscerated,” said Kaufmann.
“The Haredisation of the Jewish World”
While the numbers indicate sweeping social and political changes within the next century, Kaufmann noted that “it’s not the case that demography is destiny.” But demography is a “contributing factor or a conditioning factor,” he said.
In Israel, for example, there is a “major religio-demographic revolution going on within global Judaism and this is the shift from secular or liberal strands of Judaism, which currently form the mainstream, to orthodoxy,” said Kaufmann. The population of Israel’s Haredim, or ultra-Orthodox, have been rapidly expanding. Haredi women currently average 7.61 children per woman, in comparison to the non-Haredi Jewish fertility rate of 2.27 (p. 226). By next year, secular Jews will be a minority of the Israeli primary school system and by 2050, the Haredim will form the majority of Israeli Jews.
By 2019, Haredi military exemptions will account for 23 percent of all draft-eligible 18 year-olds, which “could become a security problem” for Israeli military forces, Kaufmann writes in his book (p. 235-6). In addition, the majority of Haredi men devote their lives to full-time religious study in heavily subsidized yeshivas. In 1996, only 40 percent of Haredi men aged 25 to 56 worked and an average 70 percent of their incomes came from government transfers, according to a 2000 study by Eli Berman. Some high-ranking Israeli officials have expressed a fear that “within 10 years, the welfare state could be facing almost a situation of collapse,” Kaufmann said.
Overall, “Haredi growth is nudging the central tendency of Israeli politics to the right,” writes Kaufmann in his book (p. 240). The Haredim are historically anti-Zionist and support a two-state solution in order to trade majority-Arab territory for a more Jewish Israel. However, growing expansion of Haredi settlements into East Jerusalem has given them a greater stake in keeping the borders of Jerusalem intact, thus complicating their stance on the “land for peace” issue, he said. Ultimately, “the demography of Israeli Jewry will make peace harder to achieve,” he writes (p. 247).
“The Islamist Crescendo”
“Demography has made a difference in the Muslim world,” said Kaufmann. As the religious rural poor – who have high fertility rates – migrated to predominantly secular Arab cities, they provided a “large constituency which could be mobilized by a new Islamist movement,” he said. “The great migration of the pious masses from the countryside into urban politics is the big demographic story behind the Islamist crescendo,” he writes in his book (p. 120).
Due to Islamist pro-natalist and anti-contraception policies, “family planning began two decades later in most Arab states than in the rest of the developing world,” writes Kaufmann (p. 127). The resulting youth bulge of economically and politically frustrated youth proved a major factor in the Arab Spring, according to Kaufmann (and others). “When the dust settles,” religious fundamentalist groups, such as Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, are likely to be “a major force,” he said. Post-revolution democracies in the Arab world could very well lead to “more religious populism,” he said. “We can’t rule that out.”
Surveys of Muslim cities show that “Muslim women most in favor of sharia bear twice as many children as Muslim women who are least in favor,” he writes (p. 130). And as Arab countries develop, secular fertility rates will decline, widening the fertility gap. “Ironically, demographic radicalism will gain momentum if Muslim societies open up,” he writes (p. 157). “The religious shall inherit the earth.”
Sources: Foreign Policy, Guardian, Population Action International, Population Council, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, USA Today.
Photo Credit: "Jerusalem-The western Wall" courtesy of flickr user AntonioA.
China’s Other Looming Choke Point: Food Production
Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Even along the middle reaches of the Yellow River, which irrigates 402,000 hectares (993,000 acres) of farmland north of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region’s provincial capital, there is still no mistaking the smell of dry earth and diesel fuel, the abiding scents of a desert province that is also among China’s most efficient grain producers.
Ningxia farmers have relied on the Yellow River since 221 BCE, when Qin Dynasty engineers clawed narrow trenches from the sand, introducing some of the first instances of irrigated agriculture on earth. Despite persistent droughts, in each of the last five years irrigation has made it possible for annual harvests to increase by an average of 100,000 metric tons.
The 2010 harvest of 3.5 million metric tons was nearly double what it was in 1990. The 3.9 million people who live and work on Ningxia’s 1.2 million farms, most no larger than three-quarters of a hectare (1.6 acres), produce the highest yields of rice and corn in the nine-province Yellow River Basin, according to central government crop statistics.
In sum, the farm productivity of this small northern China region – about the same size as West Virginia and located 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) to the west of the Bohai Sea – reflects the major shifts in geography and cultivation practices over the last generation that have made China both self-sufficient in food production and the largest grain grower in the world.
Yet Chinese farm officials here and academic authorities in Beijing are becoming increasingly concerned that China does not have enough water, good land, and energy to sustain its agricultural prowess. As Circle of Blue and the Woodrow Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum have reported in the Choke Point: China series, momentous competing trends – rising energy demand, accelerating modernization, and diminishing freshwater resources – are putting the country’s energy production and security at risk.
The very same trends also threaten China’s farm productivity. Last year, the national farm sector and the coal sector combined used 85 percent of the 599 billion cubic meters (158 trillion gallons) of water used in China.
Continue reading on Circle of Blue.
Keith Schneider is the senior editor of Circle of Blue and was a New York Times national correspondent for over a decade, where he continues to report as a special writer on energy, real estate, business, and technology.
Photo Credit: Used with permission, courtesy of J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue.
Finding the Right Paddle: Navigating Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
A report from E3G titled, Degrees of Risk: Defining a Risk Management Framework for Climate Security, contends that a more rigorous risk management approach is needed to deal with the security implications of climate change, and cues should be taken from the risk management approach of the national security community. Risk management, while not a “panacea” for divisive climate change politics, “provides a way to frame these debates around a careful consideration of all the available information.”
The report calls for a three-tier, “ABC” framework for international planning:
1) Aim to stay below 2°C (3.6°F) of warmingAuthors Nick Mabey, Jay Gulledge, Bernard Finel, and Katherine Silverthorne write, “Absolutes are a rarity in national security and decisions are generally a matter of managing and balancing various forms of risk.” Climate change adaptation and mitigation, they say, is no different. “There are multiple levels of uncertainty involved in addressing and planning for climate change…such as how much global temperatures will rise, what the impact of more rapid regional climate change will be, and how effective countries will be in agreeing to and implementing adaptation and emissions reduction plans?”
2) Build and budget assuming 3-4°C (5.4-7.2°F) of warming
3) Contingency plan for 5-7°C (9-12.6°F) of warming
The security community “need[s] to go out and tell leaders that they will not be able to guarantee security in a world where we don’t control climate change, and that controlling climate change means radical changes – not just more incremental progress,” argued Mabey, the Founding Director and Chief Executive of E3G, in a video interview with ECSP in May 2009.
Preparing for the effects of climate change is certainly a daunting task given the complexity and scope of the system – the entire planet. It is therefore important to gather as much information as possible and to “look in the dark spaces” of our knowledge gap.
But, “uncertainty per se cannot be a barrier to action,” write Mabey et al. “Uncertainty doesn’t mean we know nothing, just that we do not know precisely what the future may hold. Risk management is both an art and a science. It depends on using the best data possible, but also being aware of what we do not know and cannot know.”
Sources: E3G, USA Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Photo Credit: “Messing about on the river!” courtesy of flickr user Pondspider.
You Are Invited: June 13, 2011
Book Launch: So Much Aid, So Little Development: Stories from Pakistan
Monday, June 13, 2011
Asia Program, Environmental Change and Security Program, and Global Health Initiative
Tuesday, June 13, 2011, 4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m
Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC
5th Floor Conference Room
Agenda Directions
Samia Waheed Altaf, Physician and Public Health Specialist, and former Pakistan Scholar, Woodrow Wilson Center
From the book publisher:
“Pakistan has received more than $20 billion in external development assistance, but has made little evident improvement in its social indicators. So Much Aid, So Little Development offers a fresh explanation for this outcome. The book follows one major initiative, the Social Action Program developed by the Pakistani government in 1992 and funded by the World Bank to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars … Samia Altaf tells the story of the program’s shortcomings through a series of eyewitness vignettes. At every stage, she finds skewed incentives, misplaced priorities, and inappropriate designs diverting the project from its original intentions and ambitions. In the process, Altaf introduces into the development conversation the human dimension that most frameworks have neglected to their detriment.”
About the speaker:
Samia Waheed Altaf, a physician and public health specialist, was formerly the senior advisor to the Office of Health in the USAID Mission in Islamabad, Pakistan. Her career has focused on the management and coordination of complex health delivery systems for low-income populations. Dr. Altaf has also been on the faculty at Pakistan’s Aga Khan University Medical College; served as a primary health care program officer for UNICEF; and consulted for international aid agencies. She was the Wilson Center’s 2007-08 Pakistan Scholar.
For more information, and to buy the book, please visit the Woodrow Wilson Center Press site.
Location: Woodrow Wilson Center at the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington DC, USA ("Federal Triangle" stop on Blue/Orange Line), 5th floor conference room. A map to the Center is available at www.wilsoncenter.org/directions. Note: Due to heightened security, entrance to the building will be restricted and photo identification is required. Please allow additional time to pass through security.
Topics:
You Are Invited
Guest Contributor Michael Kugelman:
Pakistan’s Population Bomb Defused?
Monday, June 13, 2011
The 2008 revision’s mid-variant estimate for Pakistan in 2050 was 335 million people. The new revision projects only about 275 million by that year. Even the new high-variant estimate (314 million) falls below the earlier mid-variant projection. Furthermore, the constant-fertility variant estimate for 2050 has fallen from 450 million to under 380 million.
What gives? Thanks to some helpful staff at the Population Division and Population Action International’s Elizabeth Leahy Madsen (who helped translate the UN’s demographic-ese for this non-specialist), I can only conclude that the UN has decided to hedge its bets that Pakistan’s fertility rates will fall, simply because its South Asian neighbors (and other nations) have followed this trajectory.
If so, I believe this assumption is spurious. As reported in the Wilson Center’s recent book on Pakistan’s population challenges, though Pakistan’s fertility rate is in decline, it is falling at a considerably slower pace than that of its neighbors, and the rate of decrease has slowed considerably over the last decade. The country’s total fertility rate (TFR) today is just under four, considerably above the replacement level rate (2.1).
By many indications, Pakistan’s TFR does not figure to fall quickly anytime soon. Pakistan’s maternal and reproductive health sector is deeply troubled, with family planning services either of poor quality or nonexistent – particularly in rural areas. Many rural women are obliged to travel on average 50 to 100 kilometers to obtain such services. Meanwhile, the status of Pakistani women is dreadful; female literacy is estimated to stand at only 44 percent (some places it as low as 35 percent), while women’s labor participation rates barely approach 20 percent. Not surprisingly, Pakistan’s contraceptive prevalence rate is quite low (30 percent), while its rate of unmet need for family planning is high (25 percent).
With all of Pakistan’s problems, improving access to family planning is simply not a front-burner issue for Islamabad (in fact, as our book notes, demography on the whole is largely neglected in Pakistan), which makes the 2010 revision’s projections all the more questionable.
The UN is expected to release details on the methodology behind its basic assumptions in the coming weeks; here’s hoping for some clarity. (Editor’s note: As Liz Madsen points out, there’s also a white paper on the new probabilistic model to sift through, if you’re prepared for some heavy reading.)
Michael Kugelman is a program associate for the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Chart Credit: Modification of projections of total fertility based on Bayesian hierarchical model, courtesy of the UN Population Division.
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