Food Rights Publications

Food For Thought: How the G20 Can Help Prevent a New Food Crisis

Food price volatility is a grave threat to people around the world, and it cannot be brought under control without the G20. ActionAid is calling for action from the G20 that will allow the people and governments of developing countries to strengthen their food security and limit food price volatility

Coming Clean on Hunger: The Dirty Truth about Industrial Biofuels

Facing the Facts: Experiences of the Biofuels Boom

Farmlands have been encroached upon and taken over by biofuel companies without adequate compensation for the farmers. These are some of the stories farmers from Mozambique and Senegal told ActionAid staff.

Hunger, Poverty and Free Trade: Preventing the Next Food Crisis Before It Starts

Free trade policies have undermined agricultural safeguards in developing nations. As the developed world benefits from increased trade, the implications for food security in poor countries must be taken into account.

A Promising Start

The US approach to food aid is increasingly inefficient and outdated. But a new USAID pilot program of local and regional purchases of food in Ethiopia has shown promising outcomes. Locally produced, nutritious food has saved thousands of children from starvation.

Fertile Ground: how governments and donors can halve hunger by supporting small farmers

Less than one percent of the agriculture budget is targeted at women in the three countries researched by ActionAid in its new report Fertile Ground – Malawi, Kenya and Uganda - despite women’s central contribution to the growing of food.

Food, Farmers and Fuel: Balancing Global Grain and Energy Policies with Sustainable Land Use (November 2008)

European and American policies encouraging biofuel production are making some of the poorest women across the world go hungry, warns ActionAid in its latest report titled “Food, Farmers and Fuel: Balancing Global Grain and Energy Policies with Sustainable Land Use”.

Equitable Adaptation Financing

ActionAid calls for more and better funding for adaptation. AAUSA is working to develop policy proposals regarding the types of projects to which climate adaptation funds should be directed, and the mechanisms and channels through which such funds should flow. Please see our recent report, “Compensating for Climate Change: Principles and Lessons for Equitable Adaptation Funding.” (PDF)

Transitioning US Food Aid toward Local and Regional Purchase (Sept 2007)

Each year millions of tons of food are shipped from the United States as food aid to respond to crises resulting from droughts, conflicts and severe poverty. While there is little doubt that this aid has saved countless lives, it is also clear that the US program, designed over 50 years ago when the US had abundant food surpluses to dispose of, is enormously inefficient.

Women and Food Crises: How US Food Aid Policies Can Better Support their Struggles (March 20, 2007)

Over the last few decades, food crises have become distressingly common phenomena. Women are often at the center of these emergencies, though the disproportionate impact of hunger on women is too often hidden within the dire aggregate statistics. But the role of women in providing solutions to these crises is also too often overlooked. This discussion paper lays out some of the key issues in modern food crises and explores some opportunities for engaging women more actively in the quest for more effective answers.

Policies and Priorities: Salvaging Special Products from the Wreckage of Global Trade Talks (Sept 2006)

Negotiations at the December 2005 World Trade Organization Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong will likely be remembered as the tipping point where the aggressive demands of rich countries were finally met by enough resistance from developing nations to derail the process of global trade liberalization – at least for the time being.

Letter to Ambassador Susan Schwab (June 22, 2006)

From representatives of US development, religious, human rights, environmental and other civil-society organizations concerned about the potential.

Power Hungry: Six Reasons to Regulate Global Food Corporations (Jan 24, 2006)

Over the last few decades, food crises have become distressingly common phenomena. Women are often at the center of these emergencies, though the disproportionate impact of hunger on women is too often hidden within the dire aggregate statistics. But the role of women in providing solutions to these crises is also too often overlooked. This discussion paper lays out some of the key issues in modern food crises and explores some opportunities for engaging women more actively in the quest for more effective answers.

Policies and Priorities - US Bilateral Free Trade Negotiations: Advancing on the WTO (Dec 2005)

Death by Starvation in Malawi

The link between macro-economic and structural policies and the agricultural disaster in Malawi.

Other Publications From ActionAid International

Other Publications from the Up in Smoke Coalition

ActionAid is a member of the Up in Smoke Coalition, a coalition of organizations that makes the links between climate change and global poverty.