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	Beyond hunger by Action Aid International   Beyond hunger, by Hannah Burrows.   Mohamed Bilala, ActionAid Kenya’s Warehouse Supervisor in drought-hit Isiolo, shows me a room packed with maize and through to another packed with pulses. So far so normal in a drought relief situation.   The next room, however, leaves me momentarily disoriented. With row upon row of shovels and pile upon pile of pick axes, it looks less like an emergency distribution warehouse and more like a DIY centre.   Another way of looking at it though, is that this is a room with a long-term answer to Kenya’s current food shortages.   This is the main warehouse for ActionAid’s food distribution in Isiolo – which, in partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP), is providing food relief to communities who are currently unable to provide enough food for themselves. It is also the centre of ActionAid’s Food for Assets programme. In exchange for staple foods people are working on projects which will build ‘assets’ for their community.   The work communities are involved in takes many shapes and forms. Michael Thiauri, ActionAid Technical Advisor, explains that communities decide what is going to be most appropriate to the area they are living in and which will yield the biggest results.   In areas that receive erratic rainfall, for instance, they may work on structures like irrigation channels or zai pits, which enable them to collect run off rain water. These simple structures mean farmers can store precious rain water and channel it to their farms or home gardens.   Elsewhere, communities may choose to work on surfacing a road so they are better able to transport their produce to a nearby market. Or they may plant trees to provide pasture for their livestock and help to regenerate a piece of land which has been overused. Whatever the project, and however their working day is spent, communities are investing their time in projects that address the challenges they face today.   Mike explains, “vulnerable people living in North East Kenya are living day to day. They have families to feed so they rely on work that will give them immediate sources of income to buy food and water. As a result, they spend most of their time working on the farms of the rich or doing casual labour just to take care of their stomachs.”   This means they have to leave their own farmers unattended and renders them forever dependent on others. If farmers want to improve the productivity of their own land, they need to invest time and resources – a luxury that most can’t afford as tilling land or digging a water dam won’t put food on the table today.   Drought will happen again in Kenya, but aid agencies like ActionAid intervening with food relief is not a foregone conclusion. There are simple, cheap and practical solutions which farmers can use to increase their productivity. They just need the support, the tools and resources to be able to implement them.   Aug 2011   Not your usual humanitarian worker.   My name is Ilana Solomon, Senior Policy Analyst for ActionAid USA, and I am a humanitarian worker. When people think of humanitarian workers they see disaster responders handing out water, food and first-aid kits. However, the majority of my work takes place in an office, in Washington D.C.   The people that I support need developed countries to take responsibility for their role in one of the gravest challenges facing our time: climate change. My job is to hold policy makers accountable for solving the climate crisis and to amplify the voice of people living in poverty who are disproportionately affected by climate change.   My objective is to increase awareness of climate change and encourage people to raise their voice and take a stand alongside the communities who are most impacted by it.   To me, one of the greatest injustices is that it is those who have done the least to create the climate crisis that are the first and worst hit. My work is dedicated to advocating for policies that will help poor countries address the effects of climate change.   Some communities in East Africa are currently experiencing their worst drought in over sixty years. Previously, droughts in Northeastern Kenya used to occur every 5 to 6 years, however since the late 1990s droughts now come to East Africa every 3 months.   With droughts occurring so frequently, communities are unable to main their pastures and livestock- their main source of food and income.   Droughts also increase the potential for the spread of disease by limiting the availability of fresh water and by reducing food security. These circumstances are deepening poverty and forcing those suffering to resort to desperate measures to survive.   Abdi Omar Farah, a Somali pastoralist living in Northeastern Kenya and working with ActionAid Kenya, recently traveled to Washington, D.C. to speak directly with policy makers and the US public about climate change and drought. Abdi illustrated how a little support can go a long way to help communities adapt to drought.   He said: “With resources, my community could adapt and the effects of droughts and other disasters could be reduced. In between droughts my community experiences flash floods. If we were able to catch the rain water from the floods and store it, such water could sustain school children in times of drought. One cistern in my community could serve water to 400 school children for 3 months, and costs only approximately 100,000 Kenyan shillings[US $1,100].   There is water in some of our rivers still, but no way to transport that water to communities. Irrigation technologies could save lives. Providing support for livelihood alternatives could be another adaptation strategy. But all this takes resources, and our community is very poor.”   At international conferences, the United States has pledged to help generate money to deal with the impacts of climate change on poorer countries. So far, they have done very little to actually mobilize these funds. In November 2011, policymakers will go to a major climate conference in Durban, South Africa. A good outcome in Durban— commitment to significant emissions reductions and improved financing - could mean the difference between life and death for millions of people.   ActionAid US is working to address these issues. We need urgent action, not just words, in the lead up to Durban and beyond to help countries deal with impacts of climate change. Visit the related web page
	Cash Grants help secure Food Access by Keya Acharya, Terna Gyuse Inter Press Service & agencies   Sept 2011   Studies by the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Academic Forum on food security issues in the three countries suggest that providing food access works best when backed by cash transfers.   A paper on food security brought out by the UNDP’s Brasilia-based International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG), under the Forum, shows that despite the great strides in food production made by India people in this country are just not eating enough.   Citing indices of the World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and International Food Policy Research Institution, the paper shows that India needs to improve on poverty, hunger, nutrient intake and per capita consumption.   Ramesh Chand, director of New Delhi-based National Centre for Agricultural Economics, who was involved in preparing the paper, said the Indian situation calls for a mix of food distribution and cash transfers.   Chand told IPS that India’s decline in cereal production since 1995 is a cause for concern.   "Either we ensure access to nutrition through livestock foods, production of which has increased, or we address the decline in cereal intake by the poor," says Chand. "Since the markets can’t support this huge intake, I feel a mix of cash and grains is necessary," explains Chand.   India’s main tool for access to food, besides a mid-day school meal scheme, is its targeted public distribution system (TPDS), the world’s largest food distribution mechanism benefiting 160 million families.   Food subsidies in the 2010 – 2011 annual budget saw 14 billion dollars allocated to meet the difference between the actual cost of foodgrains and sale prices fixed under welfare schemes including the TDPS and also to maintain buffers stocks of wheat and rice.   The TPDS, however, is acknowledged, even by the government, to have huge infrastructural and systemic flaws, with significant numbers of the poor being excluded from its subsidy ambit.   P.V. Satheesh, founder of the Deccan Development Society, a voluntary agency which has successfully shown that indigenous grains are an infallible method of addressing overall food security, suggests introducing locally grown millets into India’s PDS.   Currently, the transportation of rice and wheat to all parts of the country in the PDS is expensive, and deterring the production of nutritious millets. Production of white, polished rice is also environmentally destructive, being water and chemical-intensive agriculture.   "Millets address food, health, fodder and livelihoods by being cultivable almost everywhere," Satheesh explained to IPS.   Brazil-style cash transfers, suggested by the IBSA Academic Forum, are currently somewhat controversial in India, with the new Food Security Bill, tabled to be passed in parliament in the coming weeks, recommending it as one of several measures.   A group of research scholars, including prominent development economist Jean Dreze, wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, In July, opposing cash transfers as an alternative to the PDS.   "We urge you to ensure that the National Food Security Act includes the strongest possible safeguards against a hasty transition from food entitlements to cash transfers", the letter requested the prime minister.   "Brazil’s position is not the same as that of India," Satheesh told IPS.   As per FAO’s Hunger Map 2010, undernourishment actually increased in India, from 20 percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2007, whereas it dropped from 11 percent to six percent in Brazil during the same period.   Brazil’s food security measures are an integrated mix of its zero hunger strategy of over 20 programmes in strengthening access to food, family agriculture and income generation.   One significant strategy has been Brazil’s Food Acquisition Programme (PAA), a system of public procurement and distribution under which food was bought from 138,000 farmers in 2009, and donated to 13 million people. Its budget in 2009 was 300 million dollars.   But Brazil’s proven strongpoint has been its Bolsa Familia (PBF) programme of conditional cash transfers launched in 2003, using over eight billion dollars to reach 12 million households in 2010.   PBF gives monthly cash payments to pre-defined poor families provided they fulfill education and health stipulations, basically related to pre- and postnatal care, school attendance and immunization.   The IBSA paper suggests India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee, ensuring work for pay for rural households, as a feature worth emulating.   In South Africa, as per its General Household Survey 2009, 20 percent of households have inadequate or severely inadequate access to food.   "The largest expenditure is on social welfare programmes, grants and cash transfers which assist in providing people money with which to buy food," said Josee Koch, contributor to a 2011 policy document by the Wahenga Institute on public support for food security in India, Brazil and South Africa.   "The social grants are critical," Koch says. "If you look at an analysis of what poor households spend on food, it''s between 50 to 70 percent of income that goes towards food. With rising food prices, there is little chance that this proportion will drop."   Brazil’s Interministerial Chamber on Food and National Security and the National Council of Food and Nutritional Security, both at high political levels, have been significantly effective in a co-ordinated effort at all the related indices to food security.   India, says the IBSA paper, can in turn offer its experience in consolidating a rights-based approach to food security.   Indian civil society’s Right to Food Campaign has used the courts to guarantee basic entitlements. Visit the related web page
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