What We’re Reading 9/16/09

Sep 16th, 2009 10:29 AM UTC
By Robyn Mitchell

Washington Post—Bono? Jesse Ventura? Mark Sanford? Why Not the Best? (op-ed)
The Obama administration has yet to announce a candidate to head the U.S. Agency for International Development. An op-ed in the Washington Post says that the international aid community is “so desperate for someone to run USAID” that top aid groups are holding their own poll to help find a candidate, listing 20 possibilities, including Colin Powell and Bill Gates.

The London Guardian—Oxfam: 4.5 million children at risk of aid ‘raids’ to pay for climate change
Humanitarian aid agency, Oxfam, warned today that at least 4.5 million children could die and tens of millions more could miss out on schooling if rich countries “raid” existing aid funding to pay for measures to help poor nations cope with climate change. The agency believes $50 billion a year is needed to help developing countries cope with the impacts of global warming.

Wall Street Journal—The Man Who Defused the ‘Population Bomb’ (op-ed by Gregg Easterbrook)
Norman Borlaug, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work ending the India-Pakistan food shortage of the mid-1960s and spent most of his life teaching Green Revolution agricultural techniques to farmers in impoverished countries, died late Saturday at 95. Gregg Easterbrook writes in the Wall Street Journal of Borlaug’s life. “Often it is said America lacks heroes who can provide constructive examples to the young. Here was such a hero. Yet though streets and buildings are named for Norman Borlaug throughout the developing world, most Americans don’t even know his name.”

The New Times (Rwanda)—WFP to Purchase Food From Local Farmers
In Africa, the World Food Programme has initiated a food purchase programme, dubbed ‘Purchase for Progress,’ from farmers for a period of five years effective January 2010.The move is aimed at complementing government efforts to boost agricultural production and to improve farm incomes through market engagement. The program will ensure that farming in Africa is more productive, profitable, and sustainable in line with the Millennium Development Goals, the WFP says.

UN News—UN-backed partnership promises education for millions more African children
A United Nations-backed campaign to bring education to millions of children in Africa is expanding to reach millions more after exceeding its initial target by raising more than $50 million, the UN says. The Schools for Africa partnership, set up in 2004 by the UN Children’s Fund, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Hamburg Society to raise money to help over 4 million children in Africa, signed a memorandum of understanding on the expansion in New York today.

-Robyn Mitchell

TAGS: What We're Reading