Food Matters: Fish, Income, and Food Supply—A Comparative Analysis

KEY MESSAGES: THREE FACTS AND AN IMPLICATION∙ Fact 1: The world trade system is marked by a motley assortment of discriminatory trade agreements known as the ‘Spaghetti Bowl’.∙ Fact 2: Regionalism is here to stay. Trade agreements will continue to proliferate even after the current trade round meanders to a conclusion.∙ Fact 3: This tangle of trade deals is a sub-optimal way to organise world trade. The discrimination inherent in regionalism is economically inefficient and the costs rise as manufacturing becomes ever more internationalised and supply chains grow across national borders.Regionalism is also unfair. While the spaghetti bowl is a problem for firms in big nations, it is much more of a problem for firms in poor nations. Rich nations have the resources and negotiating leverage to navigate the tangle's worst effects. The governments of small and poor nations do not. The spaghetti bowl falls much harder on the heads of the world's small and poor nations.Implication: As the spaghetti bowl's inefficiencies are increasingly magnified, the world must find a solution. Since regionalism is here to stay, the solution must work with existing regional arrangements, not against it. The solution must be to multilateralise regionalism.

A concerted effort will be made to link global health aid with efforts to redress underlying structural deficiencies in the health systems of several of the world's poorest nations under a new International Health Partnership established last month. The partnership, inked by 7 donor countries, 11

With the regional and global spike in food prices it is naturally imperative that East Timor corner crucial sources of food, joining a queue of food deficit countries from the Philippines to Singapore. But how and why has East Timor – a land of subsistence agriculturalists and one of the world's poorest nations- been turned into a net food importer? And what is the future of East Timor's agriculture? The answers are complex but we are reminded of the “Timor problem” described Dutch geographer F.J. Ormeling in the mid-1950s in a book of the same name, a reference to Timor's delicate environmental niche including highly invariant rainfall, that always threatens to breach self-sufficiency. Apparently the food security “problem” was not understood by the World Bank which, from 1999 to 2002, prioritized irrigated rice development over and above East Timor's traditional basket of staples of which corn was dominant. Indonesian rule after the 1975 invasion did extend wet-field rice, but they also left the rice paddies abandoned in 1999. With the crisis apparent, FAO in East Timor has only belatedly acknowledged the need to address non-rice agriculture. The “problem” today, as addressed by Douglas Kammen, is that East Timor faces down the curse of other states drawing upon hydrocarbon rents for quick fixes, namely that it is cheaper to import just about everything – food included – and that agriculture – the life and blood of the country for millennium - is left to the market or to wither. But as Kammen also stresses, problems of overcoming cronyism and corruption at the interface of state and market are central to East Timor's future. This is the third in a continuing series on the world food crisis. See Walden Bello, How to manufacture a global food crisis: The destruction of agriculture in developing countries; C. Peter Timmer, Japan and a Solution to the World Rice Crisis Japan Focus

BackgroundA substantial proportion of the psychiatric burden of disease falls on the world's poorest nations. Despite this, relatively little is known about the quality and content of clinical research undertaken in these countries, or the relevance of the interventions evaluated and specifically that of randomised trials.This project aims to survey the content, quality and accessibility of a sample of trials relevant to mental health conducted within low and middle-income countries; to compare these with studies conducted in high-income countries; and to assess their relevance for the needs of low and middle-income countries.MethodsAn extensive search for all trials, or possible trials, published in 1991, 1995 and 2000 with participants in low and middle-income countries has already been conducted. Studies evaluating prevention or treatment of a mental health problem within these three years will be identified and further searches conducted to assess completeness of the initial search. Data on study quality and characteristics will be extracted from each report. Accessibility will be estimated based on whether each citation is available on MEDLINE. Trials relevant to schizophrenia will be compared with a random sample of schizophrenia trials from high-income countries in the same years. Topics covered by the trials will be compared with the estimated burden of disease.ConclusionTrials and systematic reviews of trials are the gold standard of evaluation of care and increasingly provide the basis for recommendations to clinicians, to providers of care and to policy makers. Results from this study will present the first assessment of the scope, quality and accessibility of mental health trials in low and middle-income countries.

BackgroundA substantial proportion of the psychiatric burden of disease falls on the world's poorest nations, yet relatively little is known about randomised trials conducted in these countries. Our aim was to identify and describe a representative sample of mental health trials from low and middle-income countries.Methods6107 electronic records, most with full text copies, were available following extensive searches for randomised or potentially randomised trials from low and middle-income countries published in 1991, 1995 and 2000. These records were searched to identify studies relevant to mental health. Data on study characteristics were extracted from the full text copies.ResultsTrials relevant to mental health were reported in only 3% of the records. 176 records reporting 177 trials were identified: 25 were published in 1991, 45 in 1995, and 106 in 2000. Participants from China were represented in 46% of trials described. 68% of trials had <100 participants. The method of sequence generation was described in less than 20% of reports and adequate concealment of allocation was described in only 12% of reports. Participants were most frequently adults with unipolar depression (36/177) or schizophrenia (36/177). 80% of studies evaluated pharmacological interventions, a third of which were not listed by WHO as essential drugs. 41% of reports were indexed on PubMed; this proportion decreased from 68% in 1991 to 32% in 2000.ConclusionIn terms of overall health burden, trial research activity from low and middle-income countries in mental health appears to be low, and in no area adequately reflects need.

Gerard Piel brings to the monumental issues addressed in the knowledge and understanding accumulated in his four decades as publisher of Scientific America?. Under his leadership, the magazine has distinguished itself not by bringing the achievements of science to the wider audience, but also by monitoring the industrial revolution, the effects of human activity on the environment, the arms race and arms control, population growth, and economic development. In nine languages and 10 editions, Scientific American has a worldwide circulation of more than one million readers. The June 1992 United Nations Earth Summit will focus on the tremendous human and environmental devastation caused by the gap that divides the world's rich and poor nations. Written in anticipation of that conference, Only World is Gerards Piel's vision of how to heal this division - how to make this world One World, and 'keep' it so. It is an urgent message about the survival of the planet. In only world , Piel describes how the current disparity between industrialised and pre-industrial nations developed over the course of history. He then shows how the acceleration of economic development in poor nations can reduce the costs of poverty to the environment - and how rich and poor nations alike can adapt their appetites and their technologies to sustain and develop the planetary ecosystem.

Hunger and malnutrition remain among the most devastating problems facing the world's poor and needy, and continue to dominate the health and well-being of the world's poorest nations. Moreover, there are growing doubts as to the long-term sustainability of many existing food production systems, including capture fisheries and aquaculture, to meet the future increasing global demands. Of the different agricultural food production systems, aquaculture (the farming of aquatic animals and plants) is widely viewed as an important weapon in the global fight against malnutrition and poverty, particularly within developing countries where over 93% of global production is currently produced, providing in most instances an affordable and a much needed source of high quality animal protein, lipids, and other essential nutrients. The current article compares for the first time the development and growth of the aquaculture sector and capture fisheries by analyzing production by mean trophic level. Whereas marine capture fisheries have been feeding the world on high trophic level carnivorous fish species since mankind has been fishing the oceans, aquaculture production within developing countries has focused, by and large, on the production of lower trophic level species. However, like capture fisheries, aquaculture focus within economically developed countries has been essentially on the culture of high value-, high trophic level-carnivorous species. The long term sustainability of these production systems is questionable unless the industry can reduce its dependence upon capture fisheries for sourcing raw materials for feed formulation and seed inputs. In line with above, the article calls for the urgent need for all countries to adopt and adhere to the principles and guidelines for responsible aquaculture of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.

To use a nationwide household survey tool to provide an estimate of injury prevalence, mechanisms of traumatic injuries, and number of injury-related deaths in a low-income country. A randomized, cross-sectional nationwide survey using the Surgeons OverSeas Assessment of Surgical Need tool was conducted in 2012. Sierra Leone, Africa. Three thousand seven hundred fifty randomly selected participants throughout Sierra Leone. Mechanisms of injury based on age, sex, anatomic location, cause, and sociodemographic factors as well as mechanisms of injury-related deaths in the previous year were the primary outcome measures. Data were collected and analyzed from 1843 households and 3645 respondents (98% response rate). Four hundred fifty-two respondents (12%) reported at least 1 traumatic injury in the preceding year. Falls were the most common cause of nonfatal injuries (40%). The extremities were the most common injury site regardless of age or sex. Traffic injuries were the leading cause of injury-related deaths (32% of fatal injuries). This study provides baseline data on the mechanisms of traumatic injuries as well as the sociodemographic factors affecting injury prevalence in one of the world's poorest nations. It is anticipated that these data will provide an impetus for further studies to determine injury severity, associated disability, and barriers to accessing care in these resource-poor areas.

Corruption is no doubt endemic in every society. Its prevalence and longevity is a matter of concern and for its damaging public and social consequences undermines the development capacities of nations and distorts priorities. However, reports, incidents of corruption cases and discourse have concentrated on poor developing nations as presumed den of the corrupts. Hence, this paper comparatively reviewed data obtained from World Corruption Perception Index (Transparency International) for the year of2010, 2008, 2006 and 2004. The paper reveals that while poor nations are ranked higher in corruption indices, considerable numbers of rich developed nations are not exempted from corruption, particularly the G8 member nations. It is concluded that the earlier concept of corruption being peculiar amongst developing poor nations is evidentially overtaking by emerging consensus that corruption is a serious global epidemic. Thus it is recommended that national governments and international organizations must examine the roles of both the internal and external actors across nations to intensify policy measures and reforms to curb corruption between and within poor and rich nations.

The gap between the world's poorest nations and the world's wealthiest nations continues to grow despite the promises made by the proponents of globalization. Increasingly, however, “new internationalists" argue that free trade policy should be reconstituted as fair trade policy. Current policies have only served to strengthen the influence multinational corporations have over the policy debate. The tradeoff has often been at the expense of qualities not easily measured in economic terms such as human rights, depletion of natural resources, and inequitable distribution of wealth. Future trade policy will have to contend with competing forces issuing from those fearing loss of national sovereignty on the right and others concerned with social and environmental well being on the left.

The drive towards globalization and liberalized international trade has encountered numerous obstacles. In negotiations between the member nations of the World Trade Organization following the Doha conference of 2001, agriculture and pharmaceuticals have proved to be two particularly contentious areas, both of which underscore the chasm separating the richest nations from the poorest. Shinzo Kobori, distinguished research fellow at the Institute for International Policy Studies in Tokyo, analyses the problems that have inhibited multilateral agreement and examines the reasons why several larger and more affluent countries are tending to opt for bilateral or regional trade agreements. On a more optimistic note, Kobori cautiously welcomes multilateral progress in facilitating access to life-saving drugs for the inhabitants of the world's poorest nations. However, he cautions that Japan needs to shed its intransigence--both in bilateral and multilateral negotiations--in order to fully reap the benefits of liberalized international trade.

At the Gleneagles summit in July 2005, the heads of state from the G-8 countries—the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom—called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the African Development Bank to cancel 100 percent of their debt claims on the world's poorest countries. The world's richest countries have agreed in principle to forgive roughly $55 billion dollars owed by the world's poorest nations. This article considers the wisdom of the proposal for debt forgiveness, from the standpoint of stimulating economic growth in highly indebted countries. In the 1980s, debt relief under the “Brady Plan” helped to restore investment and growth in a number of middle-income developing countries. However, the debt relief plan for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) launched by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in 1996 has had little impact on either investment or growth in the recipient countries. We will explore the key differences between the countries targeted by these two debt relief schemes and argue that the Gleneagles proposal for debt relief is, at best, likely to have little effect at all. Debt relief is unlikely to help the world's poorest countries because, unlike the middle-income Brady countries, their main economic difficulty is not debt overhang, but an absence of functional economic institutions that provide the foundation for profitable investment and growth. We will show that debt relief may be more valuable for Brady-like middle-income countries than for low-income ones because of how it leverages the private sector.

After decades of war, Cambodia is one of the world's poorest nations, its economy and its political life are still suffering from the civil war that racked the country during the latter part of the 20th century. Rice and rubber were traditionally the principal exports of Cambodia, but exports fell sharply after the onset of the civil war, which put most of the rubber plantations out of operation. By the 1990s, however, rubber plantings had been undertaken as part of a national recovery program, and rubber and rice were again being exported. The fishing industry has also somehow been revived, but some food shortages continue. From this period, the largest source of export income has been timber, until the Cambodian government set up a “log export” ban in 1995. With a rather limited national environment supporting the development of an internationally competitive wood processing industry, this industry sector has not benefited from this ban. Wood material exports have continued under a limited processed form, i.e. squared logs and thick boards. Up to now, no development of any wood pulp or chipping industry has been impossible in Cambodia. Additionally, in 2002, any logging activity has been suspended for any forest companies, until the approval of their new forest concessions. Some forest companies which had old logs (harvested before 2001) were still authorized to process them. Further, in 2003, a large portion of the territory (about 24%) was declared as protected area. The industrial growth of the country is now mainly sustained by the garment and tourism sectors. But until now, inadequate transportation hampers the development of national industries, except in some “development pockets”. This poor transportation is a major impediment for the development of pulp wood plantations or pulp and chipping industries in Cambodia.

The title of Amartya Sen's 1984 volume, Resources, Values and Development, might suggest that values (human quality inputs) stand important and independent in the development process alongside of resources (the quantity of traditional capital and labor inputs). Scholars immersed in Third World development lean increasingly to such a theme. Sen's preface opens cold on this interpretation of his title and turns only a bit warm soon thereafter. How different his view in the last chapters of the book! There, the real deterrents to output are the institutional and motivational attributes of most of the populations in poor lands; the real deterrents to progress are the moral and political bases of policies pursued by their public and private leaders. Sen's title here might be Values and Development, since new attributes of the society constitute basic preconditions for persistent national development. His analytic tools for the transformation are the entitlements and capabilities of the people. Their use will bring relative advance in well-being of the less advantaged masses of the populations, including their emancipation into freedom from their feudalistic states. Sen does not treat either the how? or the how long? of this achievement. It must be implemented through governments. Specific goals, policies, and programs still lie ahead, and only as their complex tasks are accomplished can significant changes take place in today's world development scene. This argument is of fundamental concern in future development of the world's poor nations. It finds strong support in the review volume. Amartya K. Sen, Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford University for a decade and professor of philosophy and economics at Harvard University since 1987, has enriched the literature of

International Review of MissionVolume 89, Issue 355 p. 529-538 THE BENEFICENT APPEAL-THE OTHER SIDE OF VOCATION Anneke Geense-Ravestein, Anneke Geense-Ravestein Rev. Dr Anneke Geense-Ravestein is an ordained minister of the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands, and of the Protestant Church of Geneva.Search for more papers by this author Anneke Geense-Ravestein, Anneke Geense-Ravestein Rev. Dr Anneke Geense-Ravestein is an ordained minister of the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands, and of the Protestant Church of Geneva.Search for more papers by this author First published: 25 March 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6631.2000.tb00242.x Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume89, Issue355October 2000Pages 529-538 RelatedInformation