New York Times: Obama’s Fantastic Boring Idea – While President Obama’s agricultural foreign aid focus “doesn’t wow Congress or the American people,” “if it’s boring, it’s also succeeding.” No longer are the cemetery-like cornfields pockmarking Africa a sign of famine. Rather, USAID’s effort is working to ensure African farmers are food secure for the future. (Nicholas Kristof)
Los Angeles Times: Review: ‘Our Kind of People’ details AIDS crisis in Africa – Author Uzodinma Iweala argues that Africa’s AIDS crisis is more than just a health-care issue, it has economic and social effects, as of the “33.4 million people in the world (that) are HIV positive … 28.2 million of those (are) in sub-Saharan Africa.” Iweala calls for education in Africa to end the deep-rooted idea that HIV is a sinner’s disease. (David L. Ulin)
Devex: 7B and counting: How to feed the world’s population through 2021 – The global demand for food is expected to increase sharply over the next ten years, due primarily to migration, urbanization, changing diets, higher incomes and population growth. Simultaneously, agricultural resources, especially arable land, are likely to diminish. In a new joint report, the OECD and the FAO stress the importance of increasing agricultural productivity sustainably. (Ivy Mungcal)
The Seattle Times: Gates Foundation CEO: Let’s work together to solve global health issues – Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Jeff Raikes spoke Wednesday at the Life Science Innovation Northwest 2012 conference, saying that “philanthropic organizations and for-profit businesses can and should work together to tackle global health issues.” Raikes went on to say that “our mission is to figure out how to exploit the assets that you have created for profit and turn them into assets for poor people.” (Connor Radnovich)
