TOPIC: Ending Hunger. An Idea Whose Time Has Come (and Gone?) Ellen Messer. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, MA
ABSTRACT: For more than thirty years, UN organizations, nation-states, and non-governmental organizations have addressed "ending hunger" as a goal for concerned individuals and society at all political levels. Nevertheless, in 2006, FAO and IFPRI count some .9 billion people "undernourished", and World Food Summit and millennium-development-goal efforts to cut hunger in half by 2015 are far below targets. This presentation examines how "hunger" was redefined, reframed, and resassessed as "food insecurity" over the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s; with attendant changes in rhetoric, monitoring, and policy response; and the rationales and strategies by which NGOs, who arguably have failed to end hunger, persist and network more intensively with intergovernment and government organizations into the 2000s. The presentation draws on official and gray documentary literature, personal interview data, and participant observation in events.
BACKGROUND
ELLEN MESSER
Visiting Associate Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Michigan
Research Interests: Cross-cultural perspectives on human right to food; biocultural determinants of food and nutrition intake; sustainable food systems (with special emphasis on the roles of NGOs); impacts of agrobiotechnology on hunger; and cultural history of nutrition, agriculture, and food science.
Select Publications:
Messer E, DeRose L, Millman S. Who's hungry? Food shortage, poverty, and deprivation. Tokyo, Japan: United Nations Free Press, 1998.
Messer E, Cohen M, D'Costa J. Food from peace: breaking the links between hunger and conflict. Discussion paper and Policy Brief for IFPRI 2020 Vision on Food, Agriculture, and the Environment, 1998.
Messer E, Uvin P. The hunger report. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Gordon and Breach, 1996.
Messer E, Heywood P. Trying technology: neither sure nor soon. Food Policy 1990:336-45.
Messer E. Small but healthy? Some cross-cultural considerations. Human Organization 1989;48:39-52.
ABSTRACT: For more than thirty years, UN organizations, nation-states, and non-governmental organizations have addressed "ending hunger" as a goal for concerned individuals and society at all political levels. Nevertheless, in 2006, FAO and IFPRI count some .9 billion people "undernourished", and World Food Summit and millennium-development-goal efforts to cut hunger in half by 2015 are far below targets. This presentation examines how "hunger" was redefined, reframed, and resassessed as "food insecurity" over the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s; with attendant changes in rhetoric, monitoring, and policy response; and the rationales and strategies by which NGOs, who arguably have failed to end hunger, persist and network more intensively with intergovernment and government organizations into the 2000s. The presentation draws on official and gray documentary literature, personal interview data, and participant observation in events.
BACKGROUND
ELLEN MESSER
Visiting Associate Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Michigan
Research Interests: Cross-cultural perspectives on human right to food; biocultural determinants of food and nutrition intake; sustainable food systems (with special emphasis on the roles of NGOs); impacts of agrobiotechnology on hunger; and cultural history of nutrition, agriculture, and food science.
Select Publications:
Messer E, DeRose L, Millman S. Who's hungry? Food shortage, poverty, and deprivation. Tokyo, Japan: United Nations Free Press, 1998.
Messer E, Cohen M, D'Costa J. Food from peace: breaking the links between hunger and conflict. Discussion paper and Policy Brief for IFPRI 2020 Vision on Food, Agriculture, and the Environment, 1998.
Messer E, Uvin P. The hunger report. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Gordon and Breach, 1996.
Messer E, Heywood P. Trying technology: neither sure nor soon. Food Policy 1990:336-45.
Messer E. Small but healthy? Some cross-cultural considerations. Human Organization 1989;48:39-52.