Global Crisis Pushes 100 Million into Hunger: U.N.
The global economic crisis will help push 100 million people into poverty this year through lost jobs and lower earnings, leaving one sixth of the world’s population living in hunger, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said today. In developing countries the urban poor will be the hardest hit, due to job losses, but food pressure will also mount in rural areas as millions of migrants return to the countryside, the agency said. The economic global crisis will reduce aid spending from wealthy countries by around a quarter, just when it is most needed, the FAO also warned. The report said that “substantial and sustained remedial actions” will be needed to reach the U.N. Millennium goal of halving the number of hungry people to under 420 million by 2015.

Christian Science Monitor: Message to Zimbabwean Prime Minister: Aid is Linked to Improved Human Rights
The Christian Science Monitor writes that if the objective of Morgan Tsvangirai’s tour of the US and Europe was to show that Zimbabwe is ready to engage with the world, it has been a “remarkable success.” However, Tsvangirai has not been able to secure large amounts of aid for his transition government, though the US and several European countries have pledged millions of dollars to the country itself through aid agencies. The Prime Minister’s biggest message on return to Zimbabwe will be to tell his party’s coalition partners that the government must improve its human rights record if its wants more aid money.

Financial Times Op-Ed: Think Small to Tackle the World’s Problems
In the Financial Times, Foreign Policy Editor Moises Naim writes that “Since the early 1990s, the need for effective multicountry collaboration has soared, but at the same time multilateral talks have inevitably failed, deadlines have been missed and execution has stalled.” His solution for problems such as trade and climate change is “minilateralism” – bringing together the smallest possible number of countries needed, the “magic number,” to have the largest possible impact on solving a particular problem. He says that to tackle African poverty the “magic number” would be 12, including all the major donor countries and the Sub-Saharan countries most in need.

Washington Post: Obama’s War : Starting Over on Development – U.S. Pursues a New Way To Rebuild in Afghanistan
The Washington Post investigates the effectiveness of USAID programs in developing countries, particularly Afghanistan, and the Obama administration’s overhaul of development policy. The USAID reconstruction project in Afghanistan opted to steer U.S. aid toward agriculture fairs and marketing ventures instead of initiatives aimed at increasing crop production. It also spent almost $3 billion of US government money since 2004 on alternative employment programs. Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s leader on Afghanistan policy, called the strategy “the single most wasteful, most ineffective program that I had ever seen.” The Obama administration is currently taking back control over many development projects from USAID. The Post writes that there will be “a fundamental realignment of power in Washington when it comes to shaping development policy.”

-Grace Lamb-Atkinson