Human Resilience Against Food Insecurity
- 1st Edition - May 30, 2018
- Latest edition
- Author: John Michael Ashley
- Language: English
Human Resilience against Food Insecurity focuses on the human factors involved in building resilience against food and nutrition insecurity in perpetuity through better managing… Read more
Human Resilience against Food Insecurity focuses on the human factors involved in building resilience against food and nutrition insecurity in perpetuity through better managing risks (such as ‘better-spacing’ of children), diversifying the asset portfolio, behavioral change, and communication strategies for to help achieve these goals. The better the coherence and convergence amongst these human factors that promote sustainable food and nutrition security, the lower the need to rectify their absence through post-facto, unsustainable ‘firemen’s work’ of humanitarian assistance and CMAM clinics.
The book includes references to countries which are not in the lowest of the categories prescribed in the UNDP Human Development reports, also including minority groups in developed countries, such as the hunter-gatherer Inuit communities of Canada, to provide an inclusive view of the issues and concerns relevant to addressing food insecurity.
- Includes a global array of case studies
- Presents stories of success and failure in building resilience against food insecurity with the causative human aspect underlying each
- Addresses the social and cultural anthropological foundation of combatting food and nutrition insecurity
University undergraduate/ diploma/ vocational/ adult education students and teachers; developing country government agricultural/ rural development/ planning ministries and departments; extension workers and NGOs; UN and other international organisations; bilateral and multilateral donor partners and development banks
1. Introduction
2. A summary of ‘Food Security in the Developing World’
3. Understanding vulnerability to, and resilience against, food insecurity
4. The anthropological basis of human development
4.1. General introduction
4.2. A social and cultural obstacle course
4.2.1. Clearing the hurdle
4.2.2. Falling at the hurdle
4.3. Community ownership
4.4. Success breeds success
4.5. Individual food security strategies
5. The starting point of a development intervention
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Personal journeys to our understanding of ‘food insecurity’
5.3. Seeking consensus
5.4. Challenging one’s assumptions
5.5. Interaction with local administrations
5.6. Lack of trust within multi-ethnic national communities
5.7. Conflict- or political-break with tradition
5.8. Managing expectations
6. Identifying and prioritizing the challenges confronting food security resilience for all
6.1. The need for resilient food systems
6.2. Better policy making and planning
6.3. Education to build resilience
6.4. The peace dividend
6.5. Other priorities to improve resilience
7. Building the change management team and approach
7.1. Advantages of working well as a team
7.2. Getting it right as a team
7.3. Getting it wrong as a team
7.4. Institutional perspective on change management
7.5. Program implementation
8. Importance of local knowledge in building resilience
8.1. Introduction
8.2. The ‘Groundnut Scheme’ in Tanganyika
8.3. The Arctic Inuit
8.4. Sacred sites in Liberia
8.5. Barking dogs in Eritrea
8.6. Feedback on a project in Central Asia
8.7. Crop improvement through selection and application
8.8. Harnessing condensation for drip irrigation
8.9. Combining the best of the old and the new
9. Lateral thinking
9.1. Introduction
9.2. Flamingo breeding
9.3. SWOT analysis
9.4. Population management
9.5. Bringing a new idea to a community
9.6. The value of corn cobs in a parched field
9.7. Potato promotion in France
9.8. Nepal earthquake in 1998
10. The role of champions
10.1. Champions at village and public sector levels
10.2. Champions from the commercial private sector
10.3. Champions who contest the commercial private sector
10.4. Champions from international organizations, entertainment and sport
11. Case Studies
11.1. The need for more resilient food systems
11.2. Resilience to food and nutrition security amongst the Inuit
11.3. Human capital as a resilience strategy in the Pamirs
12. Conclusions
- Edition: 1
- Latest edition
- Published: May 30, 2018
- Language: English
JA
John Michael Ashley
John Ashley graduated in botany from London University, and then applied that knowledge to the field of agriculture for his doctorate from that University, working with the groundnut crop in Uganda. He also holds a degree in psychology from Cambridge.
Dr Ashley has engaged in projects which have sought to help governments address current food insecurity, and increase resilience against future food insecurity. He has multi-sector program experience in agriculture and forestry, rural development, water, environment, education, nutrition and social transfers, roads and local government.
He has worked in some thirty vulnerable and/or conflict-prone countries for 40 years, especially in Africa and Asia. He was with FAO for five years, and then became an adviser to national governments in interventions funded by international banks or donor agencies. He has conducted research with grain legume and cereal improvement programs in Libya, Kenya, Uganda and Nepal, and taught agronomy, crop physiology, ecology and human nutrition at Makerere University, Uganda.
Affiliations and expertise
Principal Food Security Adviser, Conseil Santé, Clichy, FranceRead Human Resilience Against Food Insecurity on ScienceDirect