food

20 October 2017

Posted on October 20, 2017 Leave a Comment

The Economist’s “China’s leader Xi Jinping declares the start of a ‘new era’” neatly captures the ambition of the 19^th Chinese Communist Party Congress held this week: “revise the party’s constitution, reshuffle the leadership and set the tone for policymaking in the next five years”. The ‘new era’ is one where China becomes a “great modern socialist country” by mid-century. I found Bill Bishop’s “19th Party Congress Work Report” [shared by Guy Taylor and which just added a paywall] very useful in pulling together articles from diverse sources and structuring some of the key take-aways. They include the positioning of Xi Jinping in the legacy of Chinese leaders, the characteristics of the “new era”, the strategic opportunity for China to “take center stage in the world”, the clearly articulated leadership on climate change, and the strengthened role of state enterprises. All of which very relevant to our work either directly or indirectly (through South-South and regional/international organizations).

I recently suggested to a young female professional who introduced herself as “just an intern” to consider introducing herself as a “reverse mentor” instead. That was based on the fact that pretty much every millennial who has been in my team has opened my horizons. And as Kevin Roose reports in his “Executive mentors needed. Only millennials need apply”, reverse mentoring schemes are trending in many industries. As an organization servicing the young, shouldn’t we formally develop such as system?

My graph this week if from IFPRI’s “2017 Global hunger index”. While broad numbers are positive, the index report presents important inequalities between and within countries, illustrated below for child stunting rates. It also argues that 52 out of 119 countries for which data are available, are in serious risk of hunger or alarming states of hunger. Together with FAO’s “2017 State of food security and nutrition in the world” showing that the absolute number of hungry people rose in 2016, it rings the alarm bell on a possible reversal of long term (taken for granted) trends.

My quote this week is from Muhammad Ali’s 1971 Parkinson interview: “When one man of popularity can let the world know the problem, he might lose a few dollars telling the truth, he might lose his life but he is helping millions. But if I keep my mouth shut just because I can make millions this isn’t doing nothing.”

12 May 2017

Posted on May 12, 2017 Leave a Comment

The Economist’s “A growing share of aid is spent by private firms, not charities” is worth reading as it crunches US and UK aid data to put numbers behind this trend: 25% of USAID and 22% of DFID spending went to private firms in 2016, both on the rise. The drivers behind this growth are: a shift from project-delivery to system-shaping requiring technical advice that firms are best equipped to provide; a “doing more with less” aid culture leading to more outsourcing; and private contractors’ ability to quickly match time-bound freelancer teams with complex development problems. Private contracts are also getting bigger leading to the market concentration of contractors and a growing number of consortium where small fish are used as “bid candy” by lead contractors. The Economist documents some of problems associated with these trends including higher delivery costs and risks of frauds, calling for aid agencies to take a close look at their bidding and contract practices.

WFP’s “At the root of exodus” puts numbers on the food/conflict/migration nexus. It models data from 88 countries with negative net migration and 178 countries with outflow of refugees during 1990-2015. It shows that the number of people migrating increases by 1.9% for each percent increase in the number of food-insecure people, and by 0.4% for each additional year of conflict. It also shows that migration can increase food insecurity both for those leaving and those staying behind, and that food insecurity is a significant determinant of the incidence and intensity of armed conflict. The study complements these findings with qualitative data collected through focus group discussions with 231 migrants from 10 countries in Greece, Italy, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, and validated via 570 household phone surveys in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Once on the move, food and economic security are key determinants of whether people keep going or settle. Half of Syrians interviewed in Jordan and Lebanon want to move elsewhere while only a quarter of those in Turkey plan to.

My visual this week is from the Developing Human Connectome Project which just released its first open access data. The EU-funded project aims at creating 3D brain maps of fetuses and newborns to understand how the human brain develops and what triggers certain afflictions like autism. Adult brain maps already exists. So these guys are focusing on the 20-44 weeks post-conception window, and doing MRIs on hundreds of babies in the womb.

My quote this week is from Eurasia Ian Bremmer’s “The wave to come”: “Nationalism is alive and well, partly because the problems that provoked it are still with us. […] Now here’s the really bad news: an even larger crisis is coming. The popular fury convulsing Europe and the U.S. may well spill over into the rest of the world. Just as the financial crisis, which began in the West, produced rumbling aftershocks around the globe, so the nationalist explosion will rattle the politics of countries on every continent.”

5 June 2015

Posted on June 5, 2015 Leave a Comment

AfDB and Gates’ Delivering on the promise: Leveraging natural resources to accelerate human development in Africa is a good read. It basically looks at how revenues from oil, minerals and gas could contribute to education, health and social protection in Ghana, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda. With no surprise, estimates are high, e.g., they could cover half of the health and education needs of Ghana for the next decade. The paper does not just look at how to get cash from extractives but also at how to get the industry invest more in human capital, e.g., developing local skillsets. What struck me then was the absence of discussion on safeguards and rights (the words are not even used). Shouldn’t the first investment in human capital be to-do-no-harm? This was all the more striking as the paper came on my radar, today, at the same time as the UNICEF-sponsored Guardian post on Identifying the impacts of the extractives industry on children.

NYU David Steven’s Time to Deliver the Post-2015 Agenda’s Promises to Children presents a short and powerful story around 4 core promises for children. It caught my attention because I am returning from a short stint with UNICEF Indonesia to work on a short narrative on children that connects to, but trims the fat of the SDG agenda. What struck me in David’s piece was the omission of “ending child poverty” in the list of promises. We did put it in our Indonesian list. I asked him why. He replied that the multidimensional poverty measure would be partially captured in his four promises. Fair. He also felt that the income poverty measure (which is what I was hinting at) would get “mixed up in the broader challenge of ensuring all ages are above this threshold” and would prefer to leave it out. I really like his commitment to keeping things lean and on par, but I would keep poverty in.

My graph of the week is from The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015 because of the online argument it started between Yale University Thomas Pogge and FAO quants, the former accusing the latter of a flawed methodology that underestimates the magnitude of undernourishment. A solid disagreement is always a good place to learn. This one illustrates the power of data from the decision to what gets collected, to what gets estimated, to how it gets used.

My quote of the week is from Madeleine Albright at the Chicago Forum on Global Cities [10’45’’]: “People talk to their government on 21^st century technology, the government hears them on 20^th century technology and is giving 19^th century responses”.