Showing posts by Wilson Center Staff.
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Vik Mohan, Rebecca Hill, and Alasdair Harris
In FOCUS: To Live With the Sea: Reproductive Health Care and Marine Conservation in Madagascar
›July 12, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffDownload FOCUS Issue 23: “To Live With the Sea: Reproductive Health Care and Marine Conservation in Madagascar,” from the Wilson Center.
Christine does not know how old she is. She has 16 children and lives on a remote island off the southwestern coast of Madagascar. She and her children, like other members of the Vezo ethnic group, depend entirely on the ocean for their survival. Her husband, a fisherman, struggles to catch enough to feed his family.
In this isolated area, most girls have their first child before the age of 18, and families with 10 children or more are commonplace. But since the marine conservation NGO Blue Ventures launched a family planning program in 2007, couples and women like Christine are able to make their own reproductive health choices.
Blue Ventures’ Vik Mohan, Rebecca Hill, and Alasdair Harris argue that their integrated approach, which combines reproductive health care and education with conservation and alternative livelihoods, offers these communities – and the marine environment on which they depend – the best possible chances of survival. -
Watch ‘Dialogue’ TV on Severe Weather and Climate Change: Is There a Connection?
›This week on Dialogue, host John Milewski is joined by Heidi Cullen and Edward Maibach for a discussion on whether recent severe weather outbreaks in the United States and around the world are directly tied to the latest data on climate change. [Video Below]
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.
Heidi Cullen is a research scientist and correspondent for Climate Central where she also served as director of communications. Previously, she served as the Weather Channel’s first on air climate expert and is also a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Science Advisory Board. Edward Maibach joined the George Mason University faculty in 2007 to create the Center for Climate Change Communication. He is also a principal investigator of several climate change education grants funded by the National Science Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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.
Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue
Double Choke Point: Demand for Energy Tests Water Supply and Economic Stability in China and the U.S.
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The coal mines of Inner Mongolia, China, and the oil and gas fields of the northern Great Plains in the United States are separated by 11,200 kilometers (7,000 miles) of ocean and 5,600 kilometers (3,500 miles) of land.
But, in form and function, the two fossil fuel development zones – the newest and largest in both nations – are illustrations of the escalating clash between energy demand and freshwater supplies that confront the stability of the world’s two biggest economies. How each nation responds will profoundly influence energy prices, food production, and economic security not only in their domestic markets, but also across the globe.
Both energy zones require enormous quantities of water – to mine, process, and use coal; to drill, fracture, and release oil and natural gas from deep layers of shale. Both zones also occur in some of the driest regions in China and the United States. And both zones reflect national priorities on fossil fuel production that are causing prodigious damage to the environment and putting enormous upward pressure on energy prices and inflation in China and the United States, say economists and scholars.
“To what degree is China taking into account the rising cost of energy as a factor in rising overall prices in their economy?” David Fridley said in an interview with Circle of Blue. Fridley is a staff scientist in the China Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. “What level of aggregate energy cost increases can China sustain before they tip over?”
“That’s where China’s next decade is heading – accommodating rising energy costs,” he added. “We’re already there in the United States. In 13 months, we’ll be fully in recession in this country; 9 percent of our GDP is energy costs. That’s higher than it’s been. When energy costs reach eight to nine percent of GDP, as they have in 2011, the economy is pushed into recession within a year.”
Continue reading on Circle of Blue.
Photo Credit: Used with permission, courtesy of J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue. In Ningxia Province, one of China’s largest coal producers, supplies of water to farmers have been cut 30 percent since 2008.
Robert Jenkins, OpenDemocracy.net
Women, Food Security, and Peacebuilding: From Gender Essentialism To Market Fundamentalism
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July 5, 2011 // By Wilson Center Staff
That women’s engagement in resolving and recovering from conflict is crucial to sustainable peace has been an article of faith, and an element of international law, since the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1325 in 2000. It took a decade of missed opportunities, however, for the UN to develop a systematic action plan for redeeming the promise of 1325. The September 2010 Report of the Secretary-General on women’s participation in peacebuilding contains a concrete set of commitments for UN actors working in post-conflict settings.
Top 10 Posts for June 2011
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Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen joined his former staffers (see “In Search of a New Security Narrative“) on the New Security Beat top 10 list last month after speaking at the Wilson Center in the inaugural Lee Hamilton lecture. Richard Cincotta’s look at Tunisia’s demographics also remained popular, joined by several posts on climate, security, and development, including ECSP’s “Yemen Beyond the Headlines” event.
1. In Search of a New Security Narrative: The National Conversation at the Wilson Center
2. Tunisia’s Shot at Democracy: What Demographics and Recent History Tell Us
3. Connections Between Climate and Stability: Lessons From Asia and Africa
4. Admiral Mullen: “Security Means More Than Defense,” Inaugural Lee Hamilton Lecture at the Wilson Center
5. Climate Adaptation, Development, and Peacebuilding in Fragile States: Finding the Triple-Bottom Line
6. One in Three People Will Live in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2100, Says UN
7. India’s Maoists: South Asia’s “Other” Insurgency
8. Eye on Environmental Security: Where Does It Hurt? Climate Vulnerability Index, Momentum Magazine
9. Helping Hands: An Integrated Approach to Development
10. Yemen Beyond the Headlines: Losing the Battle to Balance Water Supply and Population Growth
1. In Search of a New Security Narrative: The National Conversation at the Wilson Center
2. Tunisia’s Shot at Democracy: What Demographics and Recent History Tell Us
3. Connections Between Climate and Stability: Lessons From Asia and Africa
4. Admiral Mullen: “Security Means More Than Defense,” Inaugural Lee Hamilton Lecture at the Wilson Center
5. Climate Adaptation, Development, and Peacebuilding in Fragile States: Finding the Triple-Bottom Line
6. One in Three People Will Live in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2100, Says UN
7. India’s Maoists: South Asia’s “Other” Insurgency
8. Eye on Environmental Security: Where Does It Hurt? Climate Vulnerability Index, Momentum Magazine
9. Helping Hands: An Integrated Approach to Development
10. Yemen Beyond the Headlines: Losing the Battle to Balance Water Supply and Population Growth
Irene Kitzantides
In FOCUS Coffee and Community: Combining Agribusiness and Health in Rwanda
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June 29, 2011 // By Wilson Center Staff
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.
Tate Watkins, Short Sentences
Why Fund Both Farm Subsidies and Foreign Aid?
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June 27, 2011 // By Wilson Center Staff
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.
Watch ‘Dialogue’ TV on the Future of Women and the Arab Spring
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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.
