« Previous |
81 - 88 of 88
|
Next »
Number of results to display per page
Search Results
82. Ecological Threat Report 2022: Analysing Ecological Threats, Resilience & Peace
- Author:
- Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP)
- Publication Date:
- 10-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP)
- Abstract:
- This is the third edition of the Ecological Threat Report (ETR), which analyses ecological threats in 228 independent states and territories. Produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), the report covers over 3,638 sub-national administrative districts, or 99.99 per cent of the world's population, assessing threats relating to food risk, water risk, rapid population growth and natural disasters. Many ecological threats exist independently of climate change. However, climate change will have an amplifying effect, causing further ecological degradation. The research takes a multi-faceted, multidimensional approach by analysing risk at the national, administrative district and city level, while also assessing these entities by ecological threats, societal resilience and levels of peace. Additionally, the research provides projections to 2050. To assist the international community in prioritising its focus, IEP has identified the countries, administrative districts and cities most at risk. The main finding from the 2022 ETR is that without concerted international action, current levels of ecological degradation will substantially worsen, thereby intensifying a range of social challenges, including malnutrition, forced migration and illness. Current conflicts will escalate and multiply as a result, creating further global insecurity. A nexus of interrelated challenges sustains and feed off each other. Systemic effects compound, ensnaring countries in conflict traps that are difficult to escape. This nexus is explored in the ETR, highlighting the significant impact of high population growth, ecological collapses, weak societal resilience and their relationship to conflict. These issues need to be addressed systemically. Highlighting the gravity of the situation, 90 per cent of the 20 least peaceful countries face at least one catastrophic ecological threat, while 80 per cent have low societal resilience. Ten of the twelve countries with the highest ecological threat rating, in all four domains, currently suffer from conflict deaths, while 11 of these countries have moderate to high ratings for intensity of internal conflict.
- Topic:
- Natural Disasters, Water, Food Security, Peace, Resilience, Ecology, and Threat Assessment
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
83. US-Africa Leaders Summit: New Beginning or Old Wine in a New Bottle?
- Author:
- Charles A. Ray
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
- Abstract:
- The US-Africa Leaders Summit—which included delegates from forty-nine countries and the African Union—was held in Washington, D.C., from Dec. 13–15, 2022. The summit focused on deepening and expanding the US-Africa partnership and giving voice to Africans in meeting current global challenges. The summit addressed substantive issues like climate change, food security, and human rights, without dwelling on America’s concern about Chinese or Russian influence on the continent. While specific details remain to be worked out, the three most important deliverables of the summit were: US support for the African Union to become a member of the G-20; a promise of $55 billion in aid to Africa over the next three years; and a commitment from President Joe Biden to visit Africa in 2023.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Climate Change, Diplomacy, Human Rights, Food Security, and Leadership
- Political Geography:
- Africa, North America, and United States of America
84. Despite Headwinds, Truce Flies On – The Yemen Review, May 2022
- Author:
- Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies
- Publication Date:
- 06-2022
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Sana'a Center For Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- Despite reports of violations from both the Yemeni government and Houthi forces, May saw the truce hold for a second month, leading to an agreement brokered by the UN special envoy’s office to extend it for another two months from June 2. In addition to the continued absence of air strikes around the country, commercial flights finally resumed between Amman and Sana’a on May 16 and between Cairo and Sana’a on June 1, after delays caused by a dispute over Houthi-issued passports. The main areas of ongoing tension are Marib and Taiz. UN-backed talks between the warring parties in Amman failed to reach agreement on reopening roads to the besieged city of Taiz, whose government-held areas continued to come under occasional Houthi attack. Marib governorate, whose capital is the last northern city still under full government control, saw occasional clashes. Political tension in the south threatened to undermine the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC)’s message of unity. Forces loyal to PLC members Aiderous al-Zubaidi of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and Tareq Saleh, head of the National Resistance Forces, faced off over an attempt by Saleh’s supporters to raise the national flag over Maashiq Palace on the anniversary of the 1990 unification of Yemen. On the economic front, renewed warnings that Yemen’s food insecurity crisis could see pockets of famine emerging in the coming months, in part because of plummeting wheat imports from Ukraine and Russia.
- Topic:
- Food Security, Crisis Management, Houthis, and Armed Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Yemen and Gulf Nations
85. Analyzing DPRK's Food Supply and Demand Condition with Food Culture
- Author:
- Jangho Choi and Bum Hwan Kim
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP)
- Abstract:
- Estimation of food supply and demand in North Korea follows the FAO/WFP calorie standard at least 1,640 kcal per person per day. This method is useful in that it can estimate the minimum amount of food shortage for survival, but has a limitation in that it does not accurately reflect real life in that it ignores the food culture of North Korean residents. In this study, the amount of food supply and demand in North Korea was estimated by considering the food culture. The amount of food shortage was calculated by the difference between food consumption and supply. For food consumption, South Korea’s food supply and demand tables (1970 and 1990) and North Korean population were used to consider food culture. The amount of food supply considered North Korean food production, imports, and exports. As a result of the estimation, first, when the food shortage in North Korea in 2014 was estimated by reflecting South Korea’s food supply table in 1970, 2,388.4 thousand tons were oversupplied, resulting in a food supply and demand rate of 1.26. Second, assuming that North Korea’s food culture changes similarly to that of South Korea in 1990 due to the spread of marketplaces or the unification of South and North Korea, total food consumption increased by 33.3%, and the food supply and demand rate fell from 1.26 to 0.95. The results of this study have two implications. First, it is possible that the cereals shortage estimated by FAO/WFP based on the minimum calorie required for survival was overestimated. Second, North Korea’s carbohydrate-oriented food aid does not take North Korea’s food culture into account, so it is necessary to increase support for fish, meat, fruits and vegetables.
- Topic:
- Economics, Culture, Food Security, Consumption, and Supply and Demand
- Political Geography:
- Asia and North Korea
86. Food Insecurity and its Discontents in the Middle East and North Africa
- Author:
- Salma Al-Shami
- Publication Date:
- 09-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Arab Barometer
- Abstract:
- Food insecurity plagues majorities of citizens in six out of 10 countries surveyed as part of Arab Barometer’s seventh wave (2021-2022). Majorities from 53 percent in Libya to 68 percent in Egypt report that they ran out of food before they had money to buy more. And in nine out of 10 countries, more than half of all citizens express concern about running out of food before being able to get more. These findings reiterate a long-standing and often observed quagmire in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA): the high proportion of food insecure citizens in middle income countries with otherwise medium or high levels of human development is staggering. Beyond affirming this quagmire, Arab Barometer’s newest data show that looking at region through the lens of food insecurity and its web of discontents emphasizes seven key challenges facing MENA: “Democracy fatigue” is highest among the food insecure, though they still prefer democracy to its alternatives. Gender gaps in reports of food insecurity reiterate the consequences of extreme gender imbalances in labor force participation. Urban-rural cleavages in food insecurity are a reminder that food scarcity can be higher in rural areas on account of decreased access to credit, reliance on import substitution strategies, shrinking agricultural lands, and climate change. Despite the documented effects of the latter on food availability, food insecure citizens are less likely to want government intervention to address climate challenges. Differences between food secure and insecure citizens on evaluations of the economy are more muted than expected, perhaps because broadly defined economic challenges loom heavily on all. Still, those suffering from food insecurity express a higher desire to emigrate. And finally, food insecurity has devastating effects on present and future outlooks, with food insecure citizens—particularly youth—less likely to say both that their lives are better than their parents’ and their children’s lives will be better than their own. Poor economic conditions broadly defined are not a new phenomenon in MENA. The difficulties posed by intra-regional variation and prevalence of decade(s)- old conflicts notwithstanding, attempts to give regional snapshots of economic health in the region point to a similar conclusion: progress toward alleviating poverty and hunger and addressing inequality is at best stalled. The 2022 global poverty update from the World Bank reports that the MENA region is the only one where the extreme poverty rate has increased between 2010 and 2020, in fact doubling between 2015 and 2018. A World Inequality Lab study1 (summarized here) analyzing data between 1990 and 2016 named the Middle East as the most unequal one in the world with respect to income: the bottom 50 percent of income earners controlled just 10 percent of total regional income.
- Topic:
- Environment, Gender Issues, Governance, Food Security, and Economy
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and North Africa
87. Ending Hunger and Advancing Nutrition: Lived Experience Perspectives
- Author:
- Gloria Dabek, Samanta Dunford, Priya Fielding-Singh, and Peggy Tsai Yih
- Publication Date:
- 09-2022
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Chicago Council on Global Affairs
- Abstract:
- Today, soaring costs of living and spiraling inflation have made accessing and affording healthy food a challenge for many Americans. In June 2022, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs partnered with World Central Kitchen and Auburn University’s Hunger Solutions Institute to conduct listening sessions in three locations across the country to inform policy recommendations for the 2022 White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. The sessions focused on learning directly from individuals with lived experiences of hunger and food insecurity to explicitly center and prioritize their voices and perspectives in policy conversations. This brief presents key learnings from the listening sessions and connects them with seven actionable policy recommendations. These recommendations include: Addressing root causes of hunger; Better coordinating federal resources; Reducing barriers to federal assistance; Adding federal benefits to address current challenges; Increasing affordability and availability of fresh fruits and vegetables; Improving food recovery; Supporting communities with targeted food assistance. Underlying all of these recommendations is the understanding that hunger, nutrition, and health issues are deeply intertwined with several key environmental and social determinants—including but not limited to poverty, structural racism, housing, healthcare, economic security, education, and transportation—that help drive significant disparities in individuals’, families’, and communities’ experiences of food insecurity, nutrition, and diet-related diseases.
- Topic:
- Food Security, Hunger, Nutrition, and Cost of Living
- Political Geography:
- North America, Global Focus, and United States of America
88. The 2022 Humanitarian Crisis in Karamoja, Uganda: A real-time review
- Author:
- Raphael Lotira Arasio and Adrian Cullis
- Publication Date:
- 11-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Feinstein International Center, Tufts University
- Abstract:
- This real-time review aims to document the events that led to Karamoja’s hunger crisis in 2022, the reporting of the worsening situation by early warning systems, and the responses of the Government of Uganda and the international aid community. The review took place from the September 27–October 21, 2022.
- Topic:
- Food Security, Pastoralism, Resilience, Nutrition, Early Warning, and Malnutrition
- Political Geography:
- Uganda and Africa