Drought and famine are not extreme events. They are not anomalies. They are merely the sharp end of a global food system that is built on inequality, imbalances and – ultimately – fragility. And they are the regular upshot of a climate that is increasingly hostile and problematic for food
Shocking statistic of the week: Consumers in rich countries dispose of 220 million metric tons of food waste every year, equal to the entire food output of sub-Saharan Africa. Director General of The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) takes issue with global trends of countries becoming increasingly reliant
Today is the 101st International Women’s Day! First emerging as a day of celebration from the activities of labour movements at the turn of the twentieth century in North America and across Europe, socialist movements in various countries sought to champion women’s rights at the turn of the 20th century
Here’s a short article I wrote on ‘food dumping’ that is cross-posted from Eco-Age, an online UK magazine which covers a wide range of areas including ecological analysis, socially responsible shopping and sustainable fashion. It looks at how food aid doesn’t always do what it is supposed to, with often
Fancy yourself as a bit of a journalist? Do you have an interest in international development? Or maybe you are just fed up of the media’s portrayal of the developing world. Either way, this competition could be right up your street! For the last 4 years, British newspaper, the Guardian
In an excellent post on the history of campaigning, Max Lawson, Oxfam’s head of advocacy, reflects on what today’s campaigners on the Robin Hood Tax (or pretty much anything else) can learn from the anti-slavery movement. Cross-posted from Duncan Green’s From Poverty to Power blog. A global industry, dominated by
Welcome to The Carbon Map (click to view). Its aim: to make sense of climate change responsibility and vulnerability. The site uses interactive cartograms (maps distorted to reflect a dataset) to convey how different countries fit into the climate change picture – both causes and risks. It was created as
‘Her Zimbabwe is an alternative platform for Zimbabwean women to articulate their stories no matter what their background, no matter what their story. We want to hear the authentic voice of each and every woman in Zimbabwe, we want to count everyone. We want to say ‘here we are, here
Water is part of any production process. We need it to grow apples, as well as produce a packet of crisps. The amount of water needed in this process depends where we are because climate and agricultural practices will be the most important players. The theme at the centre of
The 19th International AIDS Conference (IAC) is being held this week in Washington, bringing together the world’s HIV and AIDS stakeholders in order to try to shape the global response to the epidemic. The world needs effective action and leadership to ‘Turn the Tide Together’ against HIV and AIDS, according
Source: IMG_5419 by controlarms, Flickr I don’t know about yours but my dictionary suggests that the word consensus means ‘general agreement’ or ‘majority opinion’. The reason I raise the issue is that over the past month, negotiators from some 170 countries have been discussing a UN arms treaty, which needed
As someone who remembers what it means to ‘put pen to paper’, being asked to write for a blog at first drew a total blank. Everyone has heard of ‘ blog,’ ‘blogger,’ ‘blogging’ and whatever else blog associated there is in ‘blogosphere.’ Yet, have we ever stopped to think what
This was the question question recently explored by Malawian women’s rights campaigner Jessie Kabwila for the BBC’s Africa Debate programme last week. There have been a number of successes for African women over the last 12 months, according to Kabwila. These include: two Nobel Peace prizes – recognised for their
Workshop experiences at the Kerry One World Centre draw the attention of participants to look at the MDGs from an local Irish perspective before taking during One World Week 2012. One World Week is a week of youth-led awareness raising, education and action that takes place throughout Ireland during the
A new tax on goods and services is being proposed in Uganda to fund HIV and AIDS prevention and protection programmes. Jamie Hitchen reports on the debate from Kampala as part of our series on life and politics in Uganda.
Meet Precious Kawinga from Lusaka, Zambia. She is a mother of 2 young boys and a reformed sex worker who is HIV positive. She now works with women in Zambia educating them on HIV and AIDS issues and entrepreneurial skills to help people work themselves out of poverty. She also
Future engineers, scientists and researchers are in no short supply of creative solutions to the challenges of global poverty, reports Patsy Toland from this year’s Young Scientist Exhibition in Dublin. Eight years ago, when the notion of Development and the Third World first made its appearance at the Young Scientists
Former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died a month ago. But what’s her legacy? Was this champion of personal wealth, privatisation of state industry and spokesperson for free-market economics justified in her policies? More than 20 years later the costs of her convictions are still being debated around the world.
“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held
Recent meetings in Edinburgh (part of the IF Campaign) and elsewhere have highlighted the fact that issues such as ensuring a legal commitment to 0.7% of GNI as aid; climate justice and fair trade have become part of the debate on whether Scotland becomes an independent nation following the referendum
The countdown to One World Week is well underway with only 11 days to go before a week of youth-led awareness raising, education and action will take place throughout Ireland during the third week in November. Organised by the National Youth Council of Ireland’s development education programme annually, One World
We’re off to Maynooth this morning to take part in Development Education Week – an annual week of activities, seminars and training sessions packaged together for student teachers completing the professional diploma in education (PDip or PDE) for teaching at post primary level in Ireland. Many people typically view DE
Did you know that two thirds of all people who are blind are female or that 80% of blindness is avoidable and 90% of blindness exists in developing countries? As part of Sightsavers development education initiatives for secondary schools, the team ran the Snap A Sight photo competition asking students
Tom Roche makes the case that all of us – student groups, teachers, woodwork folk, parents and professionals – should be making online submissions to the European Commission’s public consultation on combating wildlife trafficking, which closes on the 10th April. _______________________________ Events marking the first World Wildlife Day took place in
I recently came across an intriguing article in the BBC on-line magazine entitled: ‘The Indian Sanitary Pad Revolutionary’. It tells the ‘real life’ story of “A school dropout from a poor family in southern India [who] has revolutionised menstrual health for rural women in developing countries by inventing a simple
“The Girls of Kajiado’ tells the story of the young Maasai girls of Southern Kenya and their struggle to remain in education. Their fight represents both a desire to break the bonds of poverty and also a challenge to the traditional role of girls and women in Maasai culture.” ‘The
Definition of Education for Sustainable Development Education for sustainable development develops and strengthens the capacity of individuals, groups, communities, organizations and countries to make judgements and choices in favour of sustainable development. It can promote a shift in people’s mindsets and in so doing enable them to make our world
The autumn 2014 issue of Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review is out! Policy and Practice is a bi-annual, peer reviewed, open access (free) journal published by the Centre for Global Education (Belfast). Issue 19’s theme is titled: Finding the ‘Historically Possible’: Contexts, Limits and Possibilities in Development Education.
In the second of a series of blogs about the impact and consequences of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Africa Research Institute researcher Jamie Hitchen, back in London following a year spent working in the country, focuses on new economic hardships. You can read the first blog, on health care, here.
The past few weeks have witnessed an avalanche of discussion and debate on the 30th anniversary remake of Band Aid by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure with its emphasis on the Ebola crisis which threatens to become, according to Oxfam ‘the definitive humanitarian disaster of our generation’. In typical swashbuckling