CAADP and Fisheries Policy in Africa: are we aiming for the right reform?

Future Agricultures 2011/09/19

An estimated 200 million people in Africa rely on fish as their main source of protein, but ineffective policies and a lack of governance in the fisheries sector is endangering future access to this food source and is leading to the potential over-exploitation of some fish resources.

Recent Findings on Trade and Inequality

Ann Harrison, John McLaren and Margaret S. McMillan

International Food Policy Research Institute 2011/02/12

The 1990's dealt a blow to traditional Heckscher-Ohlin analysis of the relationship between trade and income inequality, as it became clear that rising inequality in low - income countries and other features of the data were inconsistent with that model. As a result, economists moved away from trade as a plausible explanation for rising income inequality. In recent years, however, a number of new mechanisms have been explored through which trade can affect (and usually increase) income inequality. These include within-industry effects due to heterogeneous firms; effects of offshoring of tasks; effects on incomplete contracting; and effects of labor-market frictions. A number of these mechanisms have received substantial empirical support.

Reproduced with permission from the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Keywords: food for work, trade, inequality income, economic

An online nutrition initiative

WHO 2011/09/07

In an effort to stop millions of people dying and suffering every year from malnutrition, the World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a new web-powered initiative that clarifies guidance on life-saving nutrition intervention, and assists governments and health care providers to better scale up action against all forms of malnutrition.

Bring in private players to make aid more effective

Peter Davis

Guardian UK 2011/09/05

The question of aid effectiveness has moved to the centre of development debates. If donors want to make their aid more effective, then they need to engage strategically with the private sector.

Impact of High Food and Oil Prices on the Achievement of MDG 1 in Asia and the Pacific

UNESCAP 2011/09/19

This working paper analyses the effects of the high food prices of 2010 on income poverty and the achievement of Millennium Development Goal 1 (eradication of extreme poverty and hunger) in Asia and the Pacific. It also investigates several scenarios for 2011 to predict the impact that food and oil prices may have on poverty. In 2010, higher food prices were found not to have increased poverty, but to have slowed down poverty reduction.

Does Social Capital Build Women’s Assets?

Neha Kumar and Agnes R. Quisumbing

IFPRI 2010/07

This paper investigates the long–term impact of agricultural technologies, disseminated using different implementation modalities, on men’s and women’s asset accumulation in rural Bangladesh. Data were collected in 1996–97 to examine the effects of the adoption of new vegetable varieties and polyculture fishpond management technologies on household resource allocation, incomes, and nutrition, and a followup survey was conducted ten years later.

Reproduced with permission from the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Keywords: gender, and, food, security, Bangladesh, Asia, women, impact, agriculture, technology, rural, development

Fields of Fuel: Market and Environmental Implications of Switching to Grass for U.S. Transport

LIZ MARSHALL and ZACHARY SUGG

World Resources Institute 2010/08/13

This study examines the impacts of increased commercial switchgrass production on U.S. agricultural land-use patterns, commodity prices, and the environmental impacts of cropping systems in the agricultural sector.

Keywords: energy, and, biofuel, U.S., agriculture, land, production, cropping, system

EU's Common Agricultural Policy coherent with development goals

ODI 2011/09/19

This briefing paper by the Overseas Development Institute calls for a fresh look at the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in relation to international development goals and within the new global context. It concludes that more research is needed to reconcile reforms to the CAP with the EU’s development policy towards third countries.

Somalia's transitional government agrees to end transition

Somalia Report 2011/09/07

A group of delegates agreed with United Nations consent on a set of priority tasks to be completed before the current transitional government's term ends in August 2012. The main highlight is the proposal to hold a "polis" at the end of the term conducted by a US funded contractor to make the transitional status more permanent.