The 2007-08 food crisis was a stark reminder that we do not have food security under control. With this planet's population on the rise, measures are needed to repair the global food system. This special report examines the thorny issues of food security, food distribution and food production.
Canadian development has been in crisis since the 1990s. A lack of leadership and policy direction has impelled the development community to generate a series of studies calling for the reform of Canadian aid architecture.
‘Talking to the enemy is not, in my view, appeasement.’ These words were uttered by James Baker, secretary of state in the final year of George Bush senior’s administration, on 6 October 2006. It was a courageous statement, because it ran directly...
The United States' protracted fight against insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan have raised the spectre of the Vietnam war. Mariano Aguirre reviews recent literature on US wartime policies from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The new bottom billion has reshaped the demographics of poverty. This calls for a renewed development narrative, one that focuses on inequality and shared responsibility.
The victory of the Tea Party in the United States, the referenda in Switzerland on the ban of minarets and the deportation of convicted foreigners, the huge success of Thilo Sarrazin in Germany, who argued that Germany was compromising itself in h...
For this special report, The Broker asked Carlos Oya and Pedro A. Sanchez to present their views on the global food crisis. Oya explores the problems of unequal food distribution and market liberalization. He argues that deregulated markets should...
The global food system is a sick patient, suffering from unequal distribution and excessive liberalization. Indeed, there is a striking parallel between the 2007-08 food crisis and the financial crisis. How big a hand did financial speculation on...
The global 'It's Down 2 Earth' conference on agriculture, food security and climate change was held in The Hague, the Netherlands, from 31 October to 5 November 2010. The Broker hosted an online discussion blog where participants agreed that agric...
You can leave it to South Africans to combine popular media trends with long-term development needs – and make it a success. Last year, the first reality makeover TV show on community development, Kwanda, drew over two million viewers. Five groups...
Africa can use the International Criminal Court to help break the cycle of impunity that plagues several of its states. But to function effectively, the Court needs support from the international community to help resolve the challenges it faces i...
The stakes are high in the future of agriculture. If we are to feed nine billion people by 2050, myths about the right ways forward in agricultural production need to be replaced by policies based on scientific evidence.
Rosario Leon's reflections on the work of CERES in promoting national identity cards to poor, rural indigenous communities in Bolivia is a vivid account of the political tensions and the emotional effects that accompany prosaic administrative enga...
I am a sociologist and the director of Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Economica y Social (CERES), a small Bolivian policy research institute. Like most such organizations, CERES has always been heavily dependent on aid. I have experienced and r...