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An Expert Voice
NEW YORK (IDN | UNDESA) — With hundreds of millions suffering hunger, a growing population and devastating impacts of agriculture on the environment, many experts are asking themselves: will we have enough food for everyone? Ahead of the 54th session of the UN Commission on Population Development, we ask that question to Cheryl Sawyer, Senior Population Affairs Officer at UN DESA.
By Jaya Ramachandaran
PARIS (IDN) — The Sahel and West Africa are facing a major food and nutrition crisis for the second consecutive year and 27.1 million people will be at risk during the 2021 lean season, according to experts. A swift and co-ordinated response, they say, is needed alongside strengthened political commitment to finding more sustainable ways of addressing recurrent crises and the growing need for food assistance across the region.
By J Natranis
NEW YORK (IDN) — The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a deeply troubling situation in the world’s poorest countries. It threatens to push the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) another ten years further into the future, warns the Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2021 by more than 60 United Nations Agencies and international organizations. Because of the pandemic, the global economy has experienced the worst recession in 90 years.
By Jones Ntaukira
KAPITA, Malawi (IDN) — Most development agencies fail because they don’t listen to the people and end up imposing projects on people. This is an important lesson I learned over 10 years working as a development worker here with Empower Malawi.
I joined the Empower Malawi team in 2010 as a fresh young graduate with no experience in development work. A scientist at heart, equipped with theories, hope and confidence amassed from the long lecture hours, I was eager to get down to work. I cared less where and how. I just wanted to work and enjoy myself.
By Jaya Ramachandran
ROME (IDN) — Under the leadership of UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the Pre-Summit of the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit from July 19 to July 21 will bring together worldwide efforts and contributions aiming at transforming global food systems.
Youth, smallholder farmers, indigenous peoples, researchers, the private sector, policy leaders and ministers of agriculture, environment, health, and finance among others will deliver the latest evidence-based and scientific approach from around the world.
Viewpoint by Justin Podur*
This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
TORONTO (IDN) — India’s right-wing government has been deploying all the modern tools of repression against a historic farmers’ protest. Much is at stake. For the people of India, their agricultural system is about to get far more precarious. For its farmers, ruin, and bankruptcy for millions, is all but guaranteed. For the government of Narendra Modi and his elite backers, it’s a crossroads moment; they calculate that their political power is assured for decades if they can refashion the politics of rural India and force dependency upon the farmers.
Viewpoint by Dr Yossef Ben-Meir
The writer is President of the High Atlas Foundation, which is an implementer of the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer Program in Morocco.
MARRAKECH (IDN) — Participatory community movements found a contemporary impetus in post-World War II reconstruction of Europe and decolonization, primarily in Africa. The approach of locally managed change, however, was highly distrusted during these initial years, during which the dominant view was that central-level policymakers are in a better position than the people to make highly productive decisions regarding development projects.
By Manu Moudgil*
NEW DELHI (IDN) – On February 6, protesters blocked roads at an estimated 10,000 spots across India as part of the ongoing movement against the new farm laws enacted by the national government last year. For over two months, the most populous democracy in the world has witnessed what is being called one of the biggest protests in human history.
Viewpoint by Agnes Kalibata*
NEW YORK (IDN) – Long before the emergence of COVID-19, it was well-accepted that the world was off-course to achieve most of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, including ending hunger. But recovering from the pandemic to deliver any of the 17 SDGs relies now more than ever on first feeding the world.
Yet as COVID-19 spread, the reported number of hungry people rocketed upward after three decades of progress, with worse still likely to come in some regions as farmers contend with an unprecedented number of extreme weather events as well as the impact of the pandemic.
By Kwame Buist
ROME (IDN) – The United Nations is to involve millions of rural people in the 2021 Food Systems Summit as part of an ambitious public engagement process, in which indigenous communities, family farmers, rural women and youth are among those invited to take a seat at the table during Independent Dialogues to help transform global food systems.
This unprecedented commitment to ensure that the voices and opinions of millions of the world’s most remote rural people are at the heart of the Food Systems Summit was announced February 18 by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy, Agnes Kalibata, and the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Gilbert F. Houngbo.
IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses, features, reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples. It has been online since 2009. Its network spans countries around the world.