Steve Wilson

With “Feed the Future,” U.S. signals major shift in fight against hunger — The United States launched a major food security initiative on Thursday, dubbed ‘Feed the Future’, confirming Washington’s shift from relying exclusively on food aid as its anti-hunger tool to multi-billion dollar, long-term investments to develop world farming. Rajiv Shah, head of the US agency for international development, said the new program intends to invest $3.5 billion in the next three years in 20 countries to “reverse the trend of failed agriculture and malnutrition leading to hunger and insecurity”. (Wall Street Journal, Scott Kilman)

Repression Is Alleged Before Vote in Ethiopia — Diplomats, human rights groups and witnesses say the Ethiopian government is methodically stifling dissent in the prelude to this weekend’s national elections, denying food aid to opposition supporters, jailing political opponents and possibly killing a few activists, part of a broader pattern of repression in several of America’s closest allies in Africa, especially during election time, write the NY Times. (NY Times, Jeffrey Gettleman)

Another round for Africa’s Iron Lady — When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected president of Liberia in 2005, she promised to step down as head of state after one six-year term. Now, however, the 71-year-old former World Bank director, the only woman ever elected to head an African state, says she needs another term to complete what she has started. Though Sirleaf is the favorite to win next year’s election, she will not have it all her own way in this small west African country, the Economist writes. (The Economist)

Vice President Joe Biden to travel to Africa in June — Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa during the week of June 7, the White House announced Thursday. The Vice President, who will be joined by his wife Jill Biden on the trip, will also represent the United States during the opening ceremonies of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. (CNN reports)

Cooling Fear of a Malaria Surge from Warming — NY Times blogger Andrew Revkin writes that the risk of global warming increasing malaria rates in the developing world is likely overblown. He writes, “the science linking warming and malaria risk was always iffy,” and a study this week concludes that the ongoing shrinkage of areas where the disease is endemic is many times more significant than any expansion of the potential malaria threat from climate change. (New York Times blog, Andrew Revkin)

Expand pilot programs that fight global hunger smarter — The Los Angeles Times writes an editorial today in support of shifting global food programs from using American produced food and shipping it overseas, and instead purchasing food locally in the region where it will be consumed to fight hunger. This kind of approach, “can cut the cost of food aid by up to one-third in parts of Africa, according to the Government Accountability Office, and deliver the goods three times as fast. For the hungry, that can mean the difference between life and death,” the paper writes. (Los Angeles Times editorial)

Unavailability of birth control in poor countries exacerbates poverty — Nicholas Kristof writes from Congo that the birth control pill has yet to reach parts of Africa, and condoms and other forms of birth control and AIDS prevention are still far too difficult to obtain in some areas. This lack of family planning, he says, leads to breakneck population growth, which is linked to poverty, instability and conflict. (op-ed by Nicholas Kristof, New York Times)

Sub-Saharan Africa needs a “Green Revolution,” says the UN — Sub-Saharan Africa needs a “Green Revolution” investing in agricultural technology to boost food security after decades of under-investment, a United Nations agency said on Wednesday. The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development said in a report that technology and innovation must be targeted at the needs of Africa’s millions of smallholder farmers and reflect varying climate conditions, rather than being simply copied from advances in Asia and Latin America. Africa’s capacity to provide food has declined by one fifth over the past 40 years, the report said.

Oxfam, addressing critics, says to improve aid, not end it — Oxfam has addressed the recent wave of “dangerous” criticism of overseas aid, warning that financially stretched governments could use it as an excuse to cut their overseas commitments. In a report published this morning, the charity concedes that overseas aid “has its faults” but that on the whole it boosts economic growth by improving health services, giving millions more children an education and supporting poor people’s livelihoods.

Carla Bruni behind “Born HIV Free” global campaign — France’s First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy writes today about her support for the ‘Born HIV Free’ campaign to mobilize public support for a world where no child is born with HIV by 2015. She writes, “As the world gears up this year for a final push towards the Millennium Development Goals agreed to by all countries in 2000, I write to express my deep concern for women and children affected by HIV and AIDS… The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria funds more than half of the programs around the world to help HIV-positive women prevent passing on the virus to their children. We are asking for no more than that the world support the Global Fund’s work and in so doing make the goal of ensuring that all children are born free of HIV by 2015, a reality.”

UN efforts to fight TB have flopped, health experts say — Global efforts to control tuberculosis have failed and radical new approaches are needed, experts said Wednesday in a special edition of the of the influential British medical journal, Lancet. With more than 9 million people infected last year, including 2 million deaths, officials say there is more tuberculosis now than at any other time in history. For years, the World Health Organization and partners have fought TB largely with a program where health workers watch patients take their drugs — even though the agency acknowledged in a 2008 report that this treatment program didn’t significantly curb TB spread.

Liberia invests in farmers to feed nation, grow economy — Liberia plans to modernize its agriculture sector with the aim of feeding its own people and becoming a major food exporter in West Africa, the country’s deputy minister for agriculture said this week. After 14 years of civil war, which ended in 2003, the Liberian government is determined to make up for years of under-investment. Similar neglect has set back agriculture in many African countries, leaving farmers and the wider population vulnerable to climatic and economic shocks, as well as volatile international food prices. The government has designed an agriculture development program which will be supported by the African Development Bank to the tune of $24.5 million, together with a food enterprise and development project to which USAID is ready to commit $110 million. “Food security is a priority, the population must eat, and if you look what we are spending to import rice – over $200 million annually – that is not sustainable,” the minister said. (Reuters)

In AIDS fight, support research and technology — Rep. Barbra Lee and Dr. Seth Berkley argue that while there are recent hopeful signals from the Obama Administration on investing more in technology and research to fight AIDS, it would be better still to see this kind of commitment explicitly spelled out in President Obama’s Global Health Initiative. “Reaching the Global Health Initiative goals will require new ways of combating diseases that disproportionately burden developing countries. This in turn will require long-term support for research into new diagnostics, medicines and vaccines to address HIV, malaria, TB and a variety of neglected diseases…It’s important, moreover, that new interventions be created not only for the developing world, but with the developing world,” the authors write. (Huffington Post article by Rep. Barbra Lee and Dr. Seth Berkley)

Mining groups target west Africa — Six of the world’s biggest mining and steel companies have converged on an unprecedented scale on a mineral-rich corner of west Africa beset until recently by civil war. The companies plan to spend billions of dollars in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where some of the world’s richest deposits of iron ore, the raw ingredient of steel, are found. Buoyant demand for steel has lifted iron ore prices, intensifying global competition for Africa’s hitherto little exploited deposits, and pushing companies into increasingly risky territory. (Financial Times)

UN finds ‘shocking’ anemia in Somali women, children — Around half of Somali women and children are anemic, according to a study by the United Nations, a condition largely blamed on poverty and family culture. The study – the first of its kind in the conflict-ravaged Horn of Africa nation – found that 50 percent of women, 30 percent of school-aged children and 60 percent of children under five were anemic. One third of children and half of adult women had Vitamin A deficiency. Officials described these levels as “shocking”, noting that for anemia, they are among the highest in Africa. (Reuters)