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The Food Security Debate: From Malthus to Seinfeld
›Charles Kenny’s latest article, “Bomb Scare: The World Has a Lot of Problems; an Exploding Population Isn’t One of Them” reminds me of a late-night episode of Seinfeld: a re-run played for those who missed the original broadcast. Kenny does a nice job of filling Julian Simon’s shoes. What’s next? Will Jeffrey Sachs do a Paul Ehrlich impersonation? Oh, Lord, help me; I hope not.
I’ve already seen the finale. Not the one where Jerry, George, and Kramer go to jail — the denouement of the original “Simon and Ehrlich” show. After the public figured out that each successive argument (they never met to debate) over Malthus’s worldview was simply a rehash of the first — a statement of ideology, rather than policy — they flipped the channel.
Foreign Policy could avoid recycling this weary and irrelevant 200-year-old debate by instead exploring food security from the state-centric perspective with which policymakers are accustomed. While economists might hope for a seamless global grain production and food distribution system, it exists only on their graphs.
Cropland, water, farms, and markets are still part and parcel of the political economy of the nations in which they reside. Therefore they are subject to each state’s strategic interests, political considerations, local and regional economic forces, and historical and institutional inefficiencies.
From this realistic perspective, it is much less important that world population will soon surpass 7 billion people, and more relevant that nearly two dozen countries have dropped below established benchmarks of agricultural resource scarcity (less than 0.07 hectares of cropland per person, and/or less than 1000 cubic meters of renewable fresh water per person).
Today, 21 countries—with some 600 million people—have lost, for the foreseeable future (and perhaps forever), the potential to sustainably nourish most of their citizens using their own agricultural resources and reasonably affordable technological and energy inputs. Instead, these states must rely on trade with–and food aid from–a dwindling handful of surplus grain producers.
By 2025, another 15 countries will have joined their ranks as a result of population growth alone (according to the UN medium variant projection). By then, about 1.4 billion people will live in those 36 states—with or without climate change.
For the foreseeable future, poor countries will be dependent on an international grain market that has recently experienced unprecedented swings in volume and speculation-driven price volatility; or the incentive-numbing effects of food aid. As demand rises, the poorest states spend down foreign currency reserves to import staples, instead of using it to import technology and expertise to support their own economic development.
Meanwhile, wealthier countries finding themselves short of water and land either heavily subsidize local agriculture (e.g., Japan, Israel, and much of Europe) or invest in cropland elsewhere (e.g., China, India, and Saudi Arabia). And some grain exporters—like Thailand—decided it might be safer to hold onto some of their own grain to shield themselves from a future downturn in their own harvest. All of this is quite a bit more complex than either Malthus could have imagined or Kenny cares to relate.
It hardly matters why food prices spiked and remained relatively high—whether it is failed harvests, growing demand for grain-fed meat, biofuels, profit-taking by speculators, or climate change. Like it or not, each has become an input into those wiggly lines called grain price trends, and neither individual states nor the international system appears able or willing to do much about any of them.
From the state-centric perspective, hunger is sustained by:1. The state’s inability or lack of desire to maintain a secure environment for production and commerce within its borders;
In some countries, aspects of population age structure or population density could possibly affect all three. In others, population may have little effect at all.
2. Its incapacity to provide an economic and trade policy environment that keeps farming profitable, food markets adequately stocked and prices reasonably affordable (whether produce comes from domestic or foreign sources); and
3. Its unwillingness or inability to supplement the diets of its poor.
What bugs me most about Kenny’s re-run is its disconnect with current state-centric food policy concerns, research, and debates (even as the U.S. administration and Congress are focusing on food security, with a specific emphasis on improving the lives of women.—Ed.).
Another critique of Malthus’s 200-year-old thesis hardly informs serious policy discussions. Isn’t Foreign Policy supposed to be about today’s foreign policy?
Richard Cincotta is a consultant with the Environmental Change and Security Program and the demographer-in-residence at the H.L. Stimson Center in Washington, DC.
Photo Credit “The Bombay Armada” courtesy of Flickr user lecercle. -
Deepwater Horizon Prompts DOD Relief Efforts, Questions About Energy Security
›May 6, 2010 // By Schuyler NullAs the crippled Deepwater Horizon oil rig continues to spew an estimated 210,000 gallons of crude oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico, the Department of Defense has been asked to bring its considerable resources to bear on what has become an increasingly more common mission – disaster relief.
British Petroleum has requested specialized military imaging software and remote operating systems that are unavailable on the commercial market in order to help track and contain the spill.
In addition, the Coast Guard has been coordinating efforts to burn off oil collecting on the ocean’s surface and thousands of National Guard units have been ordered to the Gulf coast to help erect barriers in a bid to halt what President Obama called “a massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster,” as the oil slick creeps towards the coast.
As shown by these calls and the ongoing earthquake relief effort in Haiti, the military’s ability to respond to large-scale, catastrophic natural (and manmade) disasters is currently considered unmatched. The first Air National Guard aircraft was on the ground in Haiti 23 hours after the earthquake first struck, and DOD’s Transportation Command was able to begin supporting USAID relief efforts almost immediately. The Department of Defense also spearheaded American relief efforts after the 2004 tsunami and played a critical role in providing aid and security in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The Pentagon’s four-year strategic doctrine, the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), released earlier this year, predicts that such humanitarian missions will become a more common occurrence for America’s military, as the world grapples with the destabilizing effects of climate change, population growth, and competition over finite energy resources. Some experts see this expansion of the military’s portfolio as an essential part of a “hearts and minds” strategy, while others are critical of the military’s ability to navigate the difficulties of long-term reconstruction.
The QDR also highlights DOD’s efforts to reduce the need for oil – and thus deepwater oil rigs – in the first place.
The DOD as a whole is the largest consumer of energy in the United States, consuming a million gallons of petroleum every three days. In accordance with the QDR, Pentagon leaders have set an ambitious goal of procuring at least 25 percent of the military’s non-tactical energy requirement from renewable sources by 2025. The Air Force – by far the Pentagon’s largest consumer of petroleum – would like to acquire half of its domestic jet fuel requirement from alternative fuels by 2016 and successfully flight-tested a F/A-18 “Green Hornet” on Earth Day, using a blend of camelina oil and jet fuel.
At a speech at Andrews Air Force Base in March, President Obama lauded these efforts as key steps to moving beyond a petroleum-dependant economy. However, at the same event, he announced the expansion of off-shore drilling, in what some saw as a political bone thrown to conservatives. Since the Deepwater Horizon incident, the administration announced a temporary moratorium until the causes of the rig explosion and wellhead collapse have been investigated.
Cleo Paskal, associate fellow for the Energy, Environment, and Development Programme at Chatham House, warns that without paying adequate attention to the potential effects of a changing environment on energy infrastructure projects of the future – like the kind of off-shore drilling proposed for the Gulf and Eastern seaboard – such disasters may occur more frequently.
In an interview with ECSP last fall, Paskal pointed out that off-shore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were a prime example of how a changing environment – such as increased storm frequency and strength – can impact existing infrastructure. “Katrina and Rita destroyed over 400 platforms, as well as refining capacity onshore. That creates a global spike in energy prices apart from having to rebuild the infrastructure.”
The Department of Defense has demonstrated – in policy, with the QDR, and in action – that it can marshal its considerable resources in the service of renewable energy and disaster relief. But given the scope of today’s climate and energy challenges, it will take much more to solve these problems.
Photo Credit: “Deepwater Horizon,” courtesy of flickr user U.S. Coast Guard. U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Joe Torba of the 910th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, which specializes in aerial spray, prepares to dispatch aircraft to a Gulf staging area. -
Family Planning in Fragile States
›“Conflict-affected countries have some of the worst reproductive health indicators,” said Saundra Krause of the Women’s Refugee Commission at a recent Wilson Center event. “Pregnant women may deliver on the roadside or in makeshift shelters, no longer able to access whatever delivery plans they had. People fleeing their homes may have forgotten or left behind condoms and birth control methods.”
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SOUTHCOM Takes Disaster Response to Google
›United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) has publicly released a Google Earth-based mapping system, 3D User Defined Operational Pictures (UDOP) (Google Earth plug-in required), aiming to help emergency personnel and donors better respond to humanitarian crises.
Currently, UDOP maps are available for responses in Haiti and Chile. Data layers uploaded by SOUTHCOM and others can be toggled on and off and depict an array of information, from earthquake intensity maps to a 3D model of Haiti’s collapsed presidential palace. Other layers mark:
Although intriguing, the mapping system currently has major shortcomings: much of the information provided is out of date rather than in real time, and while some maps include information such as the structural integrity of buildings, patient capacities of hospitals, and brief status updates on site activities, others offer little more than approximate locations and names.- Locations and statuses of hospitals;
- Collapsed or blockaded sections of major roadways;
- Helipads and airstrips;
- Food and water distribution centers;
- IDP shelters; and
- Areas of gang activity.
Haiti and Chile, however, were only the first tests of the UDOP system. Given that the distinction between real-time and frozen data is blurred during days immediately following a disaster (the period for which UDOP is designed and most needed) and that the donor and humanitarian assistance communities will likely develop greater familiarity and comfort with the system over time, UDOP’s current flaws may simply reflect the system’s recent adoption.
For more on Google’s contributions to environmental work and human security, check out our previous post on educational climate change “tours” in Google Earth. -
The Plight of Urban Refugees in Nairobi
›“The Traditional image of life in tented sprawling camps no longer tells the full refugee story.”– Hidden and Exposed: Urban Refugees in Nairobi, Kenya
Coinciding with the end of UN-HABITAT’s 5th World Urban Forum, a new report and associated video, Hidden and Exposed: Urban Refugees in Nairobi, Kenya, have been released by the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
Hidden and Exposed removes the cloak of migration stereotypes and provides an unfiltered look at urban migrants’ struggle for daily survival. Focusing on seven neighborhoods with high refugee concentrations in Nairobi, the authors — through qualitative interviews and secondary data — found a unique, challenging urban environment for thousands of refugees. Aid and development groups often overlook these urban refugees, instead favoring work with traditional established camps on the urban periphery.
The HPG found that Nairobi’s 46,000 registered refugees represent a diverse mix of ethnic groups and nationalities, all trying to secure economic independence and security. While much research has been devoted to the traditional concept of displaced migrants in centralized ex-urban camps, such as Dadaab in Eastern Kenya, urban dwellers are just as vulnerable to insecurity, poverty, and harassment. With nebulous legal rights, facing discrimination and protected by only fragile support systems, the refugee community in Nairobi finds itself in a precarious situation.
In light of the challenges, the research team at HPG offered three basic recommendations as initial steps:
1. Protection:
2. Livelihoods:- Address confusion over legal rights to prevent issues of police harassment and community violence.
- Target a subset of donor funds for training local police forces and government agencies.
- Establish partnerships between the UNHCR and the Kenyan government to improve the latter’s Refugee Status Determination System.
- Funnel humanitarian and development aid toward legal aid services while also using innovative strategies to increase dialogue between urban refugees and the surrounding Kenyan communities.
3. Service Delivery:- Carry out surveys to better understand the Nairobi urban economy, including the informal sector.
- Support the government of Kenya in their efforts to help urban refugees to become self-reliant.
- Recognize the transition of refugees from sequestered camps to urban areas and develop an effective response.
- Secure Kenyan government permission for the issuance of work permits for refugees.
Fleeing conflict and attracted by the possibility of better jobs, services, or security, thousands of refugees have sought new lives in Nairobi. Yet the reality for many urban migrants is an existence burdened with inadequate assistance, a precarious legal status, and economic and physical insecurity. Through the implementation of these recommendations, HPG hopes to draw attention to these hidden refugees, and offer them the hope of improved livelihoods and effective security.- Design aid models to address the unique challenges faced by urban refugees in Nairobi.
- Ensure coordinated and comprehensive services, in conjunction with the Kenyan government and international organizations, to address the needs of the urban refugees and the surrounding communities, with particular attention granted to refugee women and girls.
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Megatrends: Embracing Complexity in Today’s Population and Migration Challenges
›March 29, 2010 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoForeign Policy’s Elizabeth Dickinson recently sat down with UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres for a wide-ranging interview on the global refugee crisis. Yet a strong theme emerges across the continents: The complexity of today’s conflicts belies either easy or quick solutions.
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‘Wilson Center on the Hill:’ Haiti’s Long Road Ahead
›March 25, 2010 // By Wilson Center StaffNearly two months after the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Port-au Prince, Haiti, the country still needs assistance to provide basic healthcare and shelter, in addition to rebuilding Haiti’s economy, government, and institutions. As the international community and NGOs make the transition from emergency disaster relief to long-term reconstruction and capacity-building efforts, donor coordination and long-term commitment are crucial. Recently, on Capitol Hill, a panel of experts organized by Wilson Center on the Hill and the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program discussed Haiti’s continuing problems and challenges.
Patience Necessary
Johanna Mendelson Forman, a senior associate for the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, stressed that progress in Haiti will take time—perhaps five years to rebuild and 10 years to see positive economic growth. This timeline is often frustrating for donors—including Congress and U.S. citizens—who want to see immediate results, she noted. Nevertheless, Mendelson Forman discounted the myth that “because Haiti is a weak state it is not a sovereign state,” and emphasized that developing and strengthening the Haitian government remains necessary.
She observed that the post-earthquake efforts in Haiti have been different from previous United Nations interventions, particularly in terms of the Latin American community’s involvement. Brazil, for example, is leading relief operations. Other Latin American countries—including Haiti’s neighbor, the Dominican Republic—have committed to promoting a stable and secure Haiti. Here Mendelson Forman noted a new partnership initiated by the Dominican and Haitian governments. “[Dominican officials] understand that they are doomed if Haiti is doomed,” she said. “As members of the international community, it is our job to foster that reconciliation.”
Costs Are Rising
Andrew Philip Powell, a regional economic advisor in the Caribbean Country Department at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), said that while the IDB initially estimated damage from the earthquake at about $8 billion, the complete destruction of the government and commerce centered in Port-au-Prince could push that number much higher. The IDB and partner organizations are currently conducting a Post-Disaster Needs Assessment that will ultimately identify the official damages and ballpark the cost of reconstruction.
Powell stated that Haiti is “not starting from a blank slate,” citing a development strategy agreed upon in April 2009 by the Haitian government and international donors. In keeping with the strategy, he emphasized the need for effective coordination between donors and the Haitian government. At the same time, he said it is vital to encourage population dispersion by shifting government agencies and private-sector jobs to other parts of the country. Haiti needs roads and communication networks outside of the capital area, as well as export processing zones in outlying regions, to increase the economic opportunities outside of Port-au-Prince, he said.
However, with the large amounts of aid flowing into the country, Powell warned donors and Haitian officials to remain on the lookout for “Dutch disease”—a decline in the manufacturing sector following a sharp increase in natural resource prices, foreign assistance, or foreign direct investment. Its occurrence could increase Haiti’s dependency on aid in the future.
Challenges for Healthcare
Sheri Fink, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and senior fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, offered her perspective on Haiti’s continuing health crisis based on two trips to the country in the earthquake’s aftermath. There are signs of hope, including some normalcy and commerce returning to the camps, she noted, but problems in the health sector as a whole are increasing. As field hospitals put in place after the earthquake close, “there is a fear among Haitians that attention is starting to turn elsewhere,” she said.
According to Fink, “the work is far from done” in Haiti, a sentiment she said is shared by many departing health workers. The hospitals left standing are not prepared to deal with the influx of patients arriving at their doors following the closure of field hospitals, and government health workers are currently working without pay.
Fink also pointed out the risk of long-term earthquake-related health problems, including injuries suffered during aftershocks or from falling debris, inflamed chronic diseases, horrible conditions and lack of basic health services in camps, and the “looming nightmare” of infectious disease epidemics.
Fink called for more international involvement to avert a widening of the health crisis. “We’ve made a big commitment and to follow-up on the investment, to make it mean something; let’s not be satisfied with just bringing things back to where they were,” she said.
By Sarah Huston and David Klaus of Wilson Center on the Hill at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Photo: Courtesy Flickr user United Nations Development Programme -
U.S. Policy on Post-Conflict Health Reconstruction
›December 8, 2009 // By Calyn OstrowskiStabilizing and rebuilding state infrastructure in post-conflict settings has been increasingly recognized as critical to aiding the population and preventing renewed conflict. The United States has increasingly invested in rebuilding health systems, and in some cases assisting in the delivery of health services for the first time.
While global health concerns have recently received significant attention, as witnessed by President Obama’s Global Health Initiative, the importance of health system reconstruction to stabilization efforts remains unevenly recognized. On November 10, 2009, experts met at the Global Health Council’s Humanitarian Health Caucus to discuss investing in health services in the wake of war and the challenges of funding this investment.
“Deconstruction from violence extends beyond the time of war and often leads to severe damage of health infrastructure, decreased health workers, food shortages, and diseases…resulting in increased morbidity and mortality from causes that are not directly related to combat,” shared Leonard Rubenstein, a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Rubenstein argued that while relieving suffering in post-conflict settings should be a sufficient reason to include health reconstruction in U.S. foreign policy, policymakers narrowly define rationales for engagement based on claims that investments increase peace and improve the image of the U.S. government.
Investing in Health Systems Builds State Legitimacy
The evidence for investing in health systems to deter future conflict is limited and this approach is dangerous, according to Rubenstein, because it distorts spending decisions and fails to consider comprehensive capacity development strategies. Additionally, the Department of Defense’s approach of “winning the hearts and minds” is too short-term and neither linked to “system-building activities that are effective and sustainable…nor consistent with advancing the health of the population,” he said.
Instead, Rubenstein recommended that the United States invest in health systems after conflict because it advances state legitimacy. Although additional evidence is necessary, Rubenstein maintains that the promotion of state legitimacy enhances the perception that the government is responding to their long-term needs and encourages local ownership and accountability. Developing health systems in post-conflict settings is complex and cannot be done quickly, he noted, and thus increased financial and human resource capacities will be essential.
Coordination and Transition Funding
“We need to recognize that the U.S. is not the only funder, as there are many stakeholders involved,” argued Stephen Commins, strategy manager for fragile states at the International Medical Corps. Commins argued that there is a “desperate need to coordinate donor funding … both within and across government systems, as well as an increased need for transparent donor tracking systems.”
As countries come out of conflict and start to gain government legitimacy, they need increased support to stabilize conflict and avoid collapse. Transition funding for health systems needs to support both short and long-term efforts, maintained Commins, but unfortunately the donors driving these timelines are often driven by self-interest, not the rights of the individual living in conflict.
Without a transparent donor tracking system, it is hard to demonstrate actual monetary disbursements versus commitments, so Commins called for a system that tracks allocations and spending in real time. These are not our countries, he argued, and responding to health systems in post-conflict settings should be tailored to the country’s needs, not the donor’s. He also called for increased research that describes, over time, the costs for rebuilding and transitioning from international NGO-driven systems to self-sustained governments.
Rebuilding Health Systems in Sudan
George Kijana, health coordinator in southern Sudan for the International Rescue Committee, discussed reasons for why Sudan’s health system remains poor five years after conflict. According to Kijana, the government in Southern Sudan has not been held accountable by its donors, leading to a breakdown in infrastructure and a lower quality of health workers.
Additionally, a majority of the available health data comes from non-state actors that are not easily accessible. Kijana shared that in order for Sudan to move forward, more research and data are needed to help target long-term capacity building projects, as well as short-term interventions that address infant and maternal mortality. While progress is slow, he pointed out encouraging signs of progress, as the Ministry of Health now recognizes their weaknesses and positively engages with its development partners such as the United Nations.
Photo: Romanian Patrol administers medical treatment to Afghan communities, courtesy of Flickr user lafrancevi.
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