Showing posts from category development.
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Watch: Demographic Security 101 With Elizabeth Leahy Madsen
›June 27, 2011 // By Schuyler Null“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.
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Tate Watkins, Short Sentences
Why Fund Both Farm Subsidies and Foreign Aid?
›June 27, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Tate Watkins, appeared on the blog Short Sentences.
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. -
Scott Wallace, National Geographic
A Death Foretold
›June 23, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Scott Wallace, appeared on National Geographic News Watch.
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. -
Tim Siegenbeek van Heukelom, State-of-Affairs
Food Security in Kenya’s Yala Swamp
›June 21, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe 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. -
New Oxfam Report Tackles Broken Food System
›June 17, 2011 // By Ramona Godbole“The global food system is broken,” reads a new report from Oxfam International. While much of Growing a Better Future: Food Justice in a Resource-Constrained World essentially reviews the major factors that contribute to food insecurity, Oxfam’s call to transform the food system is certainly timely, given this year’s high food prices (blamed in part for inflaming popular revolts in the Middle East) and fears of another global food crisis.
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. -
The Implications of Urbanization on Food Security and Child Mortality of the Urban Poor
›In the chapter, “Urban Agriculture and Climate Change Adaptation: Ensuring Food Security Through Adaptation,” of the edited volume, Resilient Cities: Cities and Adaptation to Climate Change – Proceedings of the Global Forum 2010, authors Marielle Debbeling and Henk de Zeeuw assess the viability of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) as a method of climate change adaptation for the urban poor. Debbeling and de Zeeuw assert that UPA increases the resilience of cities by diversifying both food supply and income streams for the urban poor; decreasing the negative effects of “heat island effect,” air pollution, and urban flooding; conserving water and utilizing organic waste; and reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Given the scale and impact of modern urbanization, the authors write that “the integration of UPA into urban development and master plans, urban land use and zoning plans, as well as active maintenance of the protected agricultural zones…is crucial.”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. -
Jacob Park, Our World 2.0
Will Expanding “Human Security” Really Improve People’s Lives?
›June 16, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Jacob Park, appeared on the UN University’s Our World 2.0.
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. -
Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?
›“The world as a whole is getting more religious,” said Professor of Politics at the University of London Eric Kaufmann, speaking at the Wilson Center for the launch of his latest book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? Due to their consistently higher birthrates, religious fundamentalists may reverse the tide of secularism within the next century, he said. [Video Below]
