Aid for Trade Conference Proposes Initiatives for Africa

African representatives at the recently ended World Trade Organization Aid for Trade conference in Geneva expressed their satisfaction with the outcome.

Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the executive secretary of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) attended the conference and said that trade can be a powerful tool for economic growth and poverty reduction in Africa.

The Aid for Trade initiative was launched by WTO in 2005 to promote the participation of developing nations in global trade on a win-win basis. Unfortunately, Chambas notes that Africa’s participation in global trade still remains incredibly low.

The Aid for Trade conference did, however, propose specific initiatives designed to address infrastructural constraints, energy, roads, etc. that could be improved to give African nations a more competitive edge in participating in world trade.

-- Jaimie Hwang

Source: VOA News

Climate Change Affects World's Poor

Climate change: stop harming, start helping :: Oxfam GB - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

The international aid agency Oxfam released a report on how the effects of climate change are drastically increasing global hunger.

The report says poor people in developing countries are growing even poorer due to unpredictable weather patterns that lead to more natural disasters and lower crop yields.

Oxfam urges G8 leaders to reduce carbon emissions by at least 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 and to provide $150 billion to help poor nations adjust to the climate change.

-- Jaimie Hwang

Source: BBC World Service

Water for the World Act of 2009

Senators Dick Durbin, Patty Murray and Bob Corker introduced the Water for the World Act of 2009 (S. 624) that will enable 100 million people to gain access to safe, clean drinking water and sanitation by 2015.

“Access to safe drinking water is a right that everyone in the world ought to enjoy but too few are able to realize,” Durbin said. “Water access is no longer simply a global health and development issue; it is a mortal and long-term threat that is increasingly becoming a national security issue. The United States needs to do much more to ensure that global water access is protected and expanded.”

Approximately one billion people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water and two out of every five people live without basic sanitation services. Pressure on global water supplies, particularly in developing nations, will continue as global warming, rapid industrialization and population and economic growth rise.

The need to combat the global water crises is important because water issues contribute to regional tensions, global health, child and maternal mortality and economic growth.

To goal of the bill would:

• Target underdeveloped countries with focused initiatives to improve access to clean water and sanitation;
• Foster global cooperation on research and technology development, including regional partnerships among experts on clean water;
• Provide technical assistance and capacity-building to develop expertise within countries facing water and sanitation challenges;
• Provide seed money for the deployment of clean water and sanitation technologies; and
• Strengthen the human infrastructure at USAID and the State Department to implement clean water and sanitation programs effectively and to ensure that water receives priority attention in our foreign policy efforts.

-- Jaimie Hwang

Read Full Bill Here.

Source: durbin.senate.gov

One Dollar Diet Project

In September of 2008, two Social Justice high school teachers took on a month-long experiment to start eating on one dollar a day. Their project taught them about food, economics and nutrition. Because the economics of food is relevant to people’s daily lives, the experiment focused on food choices, consumerism, waste, poverty, social psychology, etc.

According to their blog, the initial motivation behind the experiment was not concrete. For Christopher Greenslate, M.Ed. graduate of the Institute for Humane Education, and his partner Kerri, the teachers were just interested in the challenge and wanted to see things differently after completing their experience.

The rules for their experiment, as listed on their blog, were:

1. All food consumed each day must total $1 for each of us.

2. We cannot accept free food or “donated” food unless it is available for everyone in our area. (i.e. foraging, samples in stores, dumpster diving)

3. Any food we plant, we pay for.

4. We will do our best to cook a variety of meals; ramen noodles can only be prepared if there is no other way to stay under one dollar. (We have six packages and will buy no more)

5. Should we decide to have guests over for dinner they must eat from our share; meaning they don’t get to eat their own dollar’s worth of food.

-- Jaimie Hwang


Read their blog here.

Cosponsor the Global Food Security Act

Although 980 million people live on less than a dollar a day, poverty is not unbeatable. By bringing U.S. political attention to the issue, we can make a big impact to improve the living standards of those who do not have access to enough food, basic education, sanitation and health facilities. In the past 20 years, the number of the world’s chronically undernourished fell by 50 percent. By making one phone call to our representatives, we can continue to make the situation better. Encouraging our senators to cosponsor legislation, such as the Global Food Security Act, makes funds available to USAID for providing food in countries suffering food crises and allows them to make plans to bring an end to the poverty cycle in developing countries. Between 1999 and 2004, an estimated 135 million people were lifted out of severe poverty in low-income countries. With your support, we can improve the lives of millions by ensuring they have the means to survive. Please call or email your senators today and ask them to cosponsor the Global Food Security Act.

Warren Buffett's Son Farms in Africa

Howard Buffet is a down-to-earth Illinois soybean and corn farmer with an ambitious agenda to end world hunger.

The middle child of billionaire Warren Buffett, Howard, has spent a small part of his father’s fortune for philanthropy. For the past four years, Howard has spent a decent amount of time traveling through Africa, coming up with ideas to help poor farmers increase crop yield to feed their families as well as reducing the world’s food shortage. His foundation has allocated about $38 million this year to developing a disease-resistant sweet potato, encouraging poachers to switch to farming, provide micro credits, and helping farmers market their crops to United Nations’ hunger-relief programs. Howard is also working on a project to give African corn breeders access to Monsanto’s biotechnology for drought-tolerant corn.

Howard believes that getting Africa to feed itself is challenging because of the geography of the land and the education level and poor financial conditions of the farmers. So, he strives to develop ways for African farmers to increase their harvests without elevating costs, thus his interest in developing crops that resist disease and drought.

(Mr. Buffett travels from Ghana to Togo to Benin, trying to spread approaches to farming that he's found successful on his Illinois farm.)

-- Jaimie Hwang

Read more about Howard Buffett here.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Smallholder Farmers Can Boost Global Economy

Due to the global economic crises that has lowered incomes and increased unemployment, world hunger is projected to reach a record high in 2009 with 1.02 billion people being hungry on the daily, as their access to food is reduced, according to new estimates published by FAO on Tuesday.

"A dangerous mix of the global economic slowdown combined with stubbornly high food prices in many countries has pushed some 100 million more people than last year into chronic hunger and poverty," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. "The silent hunger crisis - affecting one sixth of all of humanity - poses a serious risk for world peace and security. We urgently need to forge a broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger in the world and to take the necessary actions."

Almost all of the world’s hungry reside in developing nations. In Asia and the Pacific, approximately 642 million people are chronically hungry; in Sub-Saharan Africa 265 million; in Latin America and the Caribbean 53 million; in the Near East and North Africa 42 million; and in developed countries 15 million in total.

Poor countries, Diouf said, require development, economic and policy tools needed to increase their agricultural production and productivity.

Smallholder farmers in developing countries make up much of the world’s poor. But, if helped, farmers not only have the potential to meet their own needs, said Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), but they can boost food security and stimulate overall economic growth. Providing smallholder farmers with access to not only seeds and fertilizers but tailored technologies, infrastructure, rural finance, and markets is vital.

"For most developing countries there is little doubt that investing in smallholder agriculture is the most sustainable safety net, particularly during a time of global economic crisis," Nwanze said.

Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme wholeheartedly agreed.

“The world must pull together to ensure emergency needs are met as long term solutions are advanced," Sheeran added.

-- Jaimie Hwang

Read more about the "grip of the crisis" here.

Source: Cattle Network