February 10, 2012
By Sung Lee
Empowering women spurs economic and social growth in communities and nations, leading to transformational change. Women farmers, in particular, have enormous untapped productive capacity if they have the same access as men to resources. The Chicago Council’s recent report, Girls Grow: A Vital Force in Rural Economies, stated that when female farmers were given the same access to agricultural products as men: 1) women’s agricultural yields could increase by 20 to 30 percent; 2) national agricultural output could increase by 2.5 to 4 percent; 3) the number of undernourished people could be reduced by 12 to 17 percent.
This week, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) have come together to develop a Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index to measure women’s roles and engagement in the agriculture sector. The Index will be used by USAID Washington and Missions for both performance monitoring and impact evaluation purposes. The index is expected to be available in March 2012. More information is available here.
Today's top stories on global agricultural development and food security issues.
World Bank: the case for African free-trade, Financial Times, February 9
Africa’s level of internal trade is very low compared to other regions. Only about 10-12 percent of African trade is with other African nations – the comparison figure for North America is 40 percent; Western European intra-trade is 63 percent; ASEAN nations trade around 30 percent with each other. This dependency on world trade makes African countries susceptible to global shocks and protectionism.
Lessons Unlearned: Why Another Gigantic Famine Looms in Africa, TIME, February 10
Droughts don't inevitably mean famine. While they may set the conditions for starvation, only human beings ensure it. The Sahel poses a challenge to mass food-aid distribution: it is far larger than Somalia and though it is not consumed by civil war, it does experience fighting in parts. Much more important is the question of whether there will be enough food to distribute. Today barely half of the $650 million the U.N. says it needs has even been pledged, let alone handed over.
Aid management goes automated, IRIN News, February 10
The World Food Programme (WFP) and Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) are undertaking a US$46,000 customization of an open-source software commonly used in disaster relief, Sahana, to develop a national relief goods inventory and monitoring system, or RGIMS. RGIMS covers inventory and warehousing, tracking and monitoring, and reporting and evaluation.
More Gyrations in the Price of Food, New York Times, February 9
Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior grains economist for the F.A.O., said in a statement that poor weather, especially in Europe and South America, had affected sentiment and prices in the commodity markets. That is consistent with the idea that erratic weather linked to climate change is functioning as a drag on potential global output, as some studies have suggested. It isn’t that total output is falling, however — global production and stocks are generally up.
International NGOs must address their accountability deficit, Opinion, Michael Jennings, Guardian, February 9
The question of accountability has often looked to how NGOs answer to donors or to the national governments of countries in which they are operating. From a financial or legal perspective, this makes perfect sense. NGOs should account for the money they spend as contracted agents of donors. And they