In the context of increased food prices in Ethiopia, the authors of this study hypothesised that adolescents in low income urban households are more likely to suffer from chronic food insecurity than those in the rural areas who may have direct access to agricultural products. They gathered data from the first two rounds of the Jimma Longitudinal Family Survey of Youth (JLFSY) and interviewed a total of 1,911 adolescents aged 13-17 years on their personal experiences of food insecurity both at baseline and at year two. Overall, 20.5% of adolescents were food insecure in the first round survey, while the proportion of adolescents with food insecurity increased to 48.4% one year later. Female sex of adolescents, high dependency ratio and household food insecurity were independent predictors of chronic adolescent food insecurity. The fact that the prevalence of chronic food insecurity increased among adolescents who are members of chronically food insecure urban households as income tertiles decreased suggests that the resilience of buffering is eroded when purchasing power diminishes and food resources are dwindling. Food security interventions should target urban low income households to reduce the level of chronic food insecurity and its consequences, the authors argue.
Poverty and health
The objective of this study was to explore trends in perceived drinking water safety in South Africa and its association with disease outbreaks, water supply and household characteristics. The authors drew on General Household Surveys from 2002-2009, which included a question about perceived drinking water safety. Trends in responses to this question were examined from 2002-2009 in relation to reported cholera cases. The results suggest that perceptions of drinking water safety have remained relatively stable over time in South Africa, once the expansion of improved supplies is controlled for. A large cholera outbreak in 2000-2002 had no apparent effect on public perception of drinking water safety in 2002. Perceived drinking water safety is primarily related to water taste, odour, and clarity rather than socio-economic or demographic characteristics. This suggest that household perceptions of drinking water safety in South Africa follow similar patterns to those observed in studies in developed countries. The stability over time in public perception of drinking water safety is particularly surprising, given the large cholera outbreak that took place at the start of this period.
This WBTI (World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative) report assesses infant and young child feeding (IYCF) policies and programmes in 33 countries located in Asia, Africa and South and Central America. The authors highlight the fact that universalising the coverage of infant and young child feeding practices is one of the most effective interventions to reduce infant and young child mortality, morbidity and malnutrition. Yet their research points to major gaps in both policies and programmes in all 33 countries, with limited support for breastfeeding women. They argue that the United Nations and external funders should commit substantial financial resources in order to universalise key interventions related to breastfeeding and complementary feeding. This calls for a coordination mechanism for planning and supervising the implementation of relevant policy in an integrated manner at all levels, from policy making to service delivery at the grassroots level. Key breastfeeding and complementary feeding indicators will need to be regularly monitored and the results may be used to make policy and programmes more effective. The authors also call for integration of infant feeding in related comprehensive national policies, as well as building human resources and social welfare for exclusively breastfeeding women.
The 2012 Africa Human Development Report argues that sustainable increases in agricultural productivity protect food entitlements—
the ability of people to access food. Furthering human development
requires nutrition policies that unleash the potential of today’s and future generations. Also, communities must be resilient enough to absorb
shocks and have the power to make decisions about their own lives. The Report shows that the basic right to food and the right to life itself is
being violated in sub-Saharan Africa to an intolerable degree. Building
a food secure continent requires transformative change— change that will be most effective if accompanied by a shift of resources, capacities and
decisions to smallholder farmers, poor communities and women. When women and other vulnerable groups gain a voice in the decisions affecting their lives and livelihoods, their capacity to produce,trade and use food is materially enhanced.
Uganda’s Indigenous Batwa people are among the most vulnerable populations in the world and have limited access to key social determinants of health, including health care, education, clean water, employment and adequate clothing, food, and security. The Batwa people were evicted from their native forests following an environmental policy enacted in 1991 and are now considered conservation refugees undergoing a drastic transition from forest dwellers to agriculturalists. The shift has negatively affected people’s health. The report argues that coordinated action among public and private sectors is required to improve Batwa health through the enforcement of their rights and increased participation in policies and programs affecting their well-being.
Angola has made vast progress since the end of the civil war in 2002 according to this report. Despite being one of Africa’s wealthiest nations in terms of natural resources, particularly oil, and recording impressive gross domestic product growth rates of 7% per year, poverty among the country’s citizens is rampant. Angola has ranked near the bottom of the bottom of the United Nations’ Human Development Index and Angola has high inequality and urban poverty. Government is reported to have made various commitments to address these issues, including investment in jobs and houses, decentralisation of government services and development of the agricultural sector.
This paper argues that many of the world’s extreme poor live in countries where the total cost of ending extreme poverty is not prohibitively high as a percentage of gross domestic product. In the not-too-distant future, the author argues that most of the world’s poor people will live in countries that have the domestic financial scope to end extreme poverty and, in time, moderate poverty. This calls in the authors opinion for a (re)framing of poverty as a matter of national distribution and national social and political contracts between elites, middle classes and poor people.
In this open letter to the United States President, the Oakland Institute and the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia announce their submission of a petition signed by over 8,000 supporters of the indigenous and local communities of Gambella, Ethiopia - 70,000 people in all - who are being forcibly relocated to make land available for large-scale agriculture. There are plans to relocate an additional 150,000 people, most of whom are subsistence farmers who have been able, until now, to feed their families without receiving government or foreign aid over the last twenty years. The Oakland Institute's field research in Ethiopia has reported allegations of violence, coercion in and unrealised benefits for relocated communities, confirmed by a Human Rights Watch study earlier in 2012. The Ethiopian government's plans for economic growth are reported to include this large scale land acquisition in Gambella and the Lower Omo Valley, where half a million people are projected to lose their lands. Ethiopia is one of the largest recipients of US development aid (more than $1 billion a year since 2007), and the letter points to the food insecurity that will result from these trends.
The East African Community (EAC) has made substantial progress on its regional integration agenda. Within a short period of time, it has been able to attain a common market status and is currently working towards establishing a monetary union by 2012, according to this article. Given that the region is prone to food shortages and drought, promoting regional integration and cooperation around agriculture has the potential to help the EAC address its and food security challenges. The author argues that NEPAD’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Plan (CAADP) should be used as a regional integration and food security tool. The EAC Secretariat is working towards developing a regional CAADP compact in 2012, adopting a bottom-up approach, building on the existing national compacts and addressing challenges shared among partner states. Most stakeholders within the region agree that a regional CAADP process is the appropriate framework to stimulate improved coordination of regional agricultural initiatives addressing food security. Stakeholders have called for stronger commitment and action from the regional level that allows farmers, especially smallholders, to move beyond subsistence.
A new film from the African Biodiversity Network (ABN) and the Gaia Foundation, narrated by actor Jeremy Irons, addresses pervasive myths about agriculture, development and Africa’s ability to feed herself. Africa is under growing pressure to turn to hybrid seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and genetically modified organisms in an effort to scale up agricultural production. In April 2012, President Obama of the United States launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, which will see the combined forces of agribusiness giants Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill, DuPont and Yara investing US$3 billion into creating new markets in Africa, amidst claims that this will solve hunger and malnutrition. In the process, the enormous wealth and diversity of locally adapted seeds and farmer knowledge is ignored, undermined and eroded by policy makers. ‘Seeds of Freedom’ shows how powerful corporate interests are destroying the biological diversity of the world’s crops. As the global food supply becomes dependent on just a few seed varieties, owned by a handful of corporations, global food insecurity is set to deepen.