Currently viewing the tag: "famine"
In today’s New York Times, Alex de Waal argues that, famine “leaves behind a bitter legacy, and a long trail of rancor. If mass starvation takes hold in Yemen, expect an even more deeply divided country. Expect radicalization. Expect an exodus across the Arabian Peninsula and up the Red Sea, toward the […]
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In the preamble to the Protocol of the Constitutive Act Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU), AU member states’ lamented that ‘no single internal factor has contributed more to … the suffering of the civilian population [in Africa] than the scourge of conflicts within and […]
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UNSC Resolution 2417, passed yesterday, highlights the nexus the conflict and famine that has echoed across Alex de Waal’s work, most notably in his book, Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine (2018). The UNSC resolution not only draws attention to the need for unobstructed delivery of humanitarian supplies, it points out that starvation can be […]
Continue Reading →Alex de Waal has a new essay, “Social Nutrition and Prohibiting Famine” in World Nutrition (2018, 9:1). Below is an extract, the full essay is available through World Nutrition.
The world almost conquered famine. By the first decade of this century, we were at the threshold of abolishing this age-old scourge, for good. But in […]
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In this new short video (4.36 mins) produced by the WPF, Alex de Waal discusses some of the main ideas from his new book, Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine (Polity 2018).
Continue Reading →Is the tide of history turning against the humanitarians? The news is ominous, but today’s five famines and near-famines do not yet rank alongside the horrors of earlier eras. Our progress has stalled. It can yet be resumed, if we care enough to make our political leaders do the right thing. As we commemorate the victims of the great English famine inflicted on the Irish 170 years ago, we should also evoke that memory to cry, “never again”. When the citizens of nations vilify the perpetrators of starvation, and insist that the humanitarian imperative overrides realpolitik and profit, then we can at last effectively prohibit famine.
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