With less than two years until the end of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the health and development communities are looking back at what has been accomplished, and looking ahead to where we have opportunities to do more.
Whenever I have the privilege of spending time among the people that the World Food Programme (WFP) serves, I come away enriched with precious extra knowledge and inspired by the new ways in which governments are tackling the world’s greatest solvable problem – hunger.
Sitting in the large auditorium at the 2013 Chicago Council symposium where I was participating for the first time, I saw a powerful force of change agents with a mission to achieve impact.
With an introductory message from USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah and keynote remarks from Helene Gayle, CEO of CARE; Lauren Bush Lauren, founder of FEED; and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, this year’s event was global agriculture’s version of the Oscars.
Immigration reform is on the move: a comprehensive immigration reform bill, S. 744, passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 21 by a vote of 13-5, with a full Senate vote expected to take place this summer.
Collaboration, local innovation, and integration across scales were themes that permeated this year’s Global Food Security Symposium organized by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
Today, almost 1 billion people are hungry. By 2050, world population will top 9 billion, only increasing the demand for food, fuel, and natural resources and straining our ability – and the planet’s ability – to feed and nourish all.
Our national discourse is driven by a few topical issues with the occasional political scandal sprinkled in. With the economic recovery, immigration reform and the IRS controversy dominating today’s conversation, it’s no surprise that a monumental issue like food security gets lost in the shuffle.
The American Gothic House still stands on the edge of the tiny town of Eldon, Iowa, just where it was in 1930 when the artist Grant Wood made it the backdrop to his famous painting, American Gothic. When the Dibble family built the little house in 1881, they put a proper cellar beneath it. That’s what you did in those days, to store preserves and to have a place to hide when a tornado hit.
Check out the Global Food Security Edition news brief.
