Roger Thurow Joins Chicago Council on Global Affairs as Senior Fellow on Global Agriculture & Food Policy
January 14, 2010
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Samantha Skinner Monroe
sskinner@thechicagocouncil.org
(312) 821-7507
Chicago - The Chicago Council on Global Affairs today announced that Roger Thurow, former Wall Street Journal correspondent and coauthor of the influential book on the global food crisis, Enough, has joined the Council as a senior fellow for Global Agriculture & Food Policy.
In his role as senior fellow, Mr. Thurow will be the editor and principal contributor to the Council’s Global Food for Thought blog, part of the Global Agricultural Development Initiative. The blog is a forum for expert commentary, debate, and breaking developments on international agriculture, food, and related issues. Mr. Thurow will also work on a range of other activities for the Global Agricultural Development Initiative.
"During my travels as a reporter, I saw firsthand the vital role agriculture plays in the daily lives of people throughout the developing world," said Mr. Thurow. “At The Chicago Council, I look forward to contributing to the international discourse on how best to address the crucial issue of the day – global hunger.”
Mr. Thurow joins the Council after thirty years at The Wall Street Journal, twenty of them as a foreign correspondent. He was based in South Africa from 1986-1991, during which he began writing about humanitarian and development issues. He has reported in more than 60 countries, including two dozen in Africa, writing about subjects as wide-ranging as the Olympics, race relations, and hunger and food security in Africa.
“Roger’s affiliation with The Chicago Council as a senior fellow will enhance our ability to contribute to discussions about global agriculture and food policy,” said Marshall M. Bouton, president of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “His decision to join the Council is a testament to our work on global agricultural issues.”
Mr. Thurow coauthored the book Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty with Wall Street Journal reporter Scott Kilman. At the Journal, Mr. Thurow produced a series of front-page stories that broke new ground in our understanding of famine and food aid.
Mr. Thurow and Mr. Kilman’s series “Anatomy of Famine” – on the 2003 famines in Ethiopia and southern Africa – was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in international reporting, and they were praised by the Pulitzer board for “haunting stories that shed new light on starvation in Africa and prompted international agencies to rethink their policies.” In 2005, Mr. Thurow was honored by the United Nations for his reporting on humanitarian and development issues.
Mr. Thurow’s first piece on hunger as the defining issue of the new decade, entitled “Why Not Hunger?,” is available for viewing here.
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, founded in 1922, is a prominent, independent and nonpartisan organization committed to influencing the discourse on global issues through contributions to opinion and policy formation, leadership dialogue, and public learning. Long known for studies of American public opinion on foreign policy, the Council is expanding its contributions to discussions of critical global issues, including through studies, task force reports, special initiatives, and conferences. Topics of recent reports include U.S. policy on global agricultural development and food security, energy policy reform and Midwest economic competitiveness, and increasing the engagement of Muslim Americans in U.S. civic and political life.