Food and Environment

by Yadav Sharma Bajagai Today, developing countries are facing severe problem of household food and nutrition insecurity caused by multifaceted reasons ranging from low agricultural productivity, limited livelihood opportunities, inefficient food distribution system, weak market linkage, poor infrastructure and lack of awareness on healthy food and care habit. Demographic and Health Survey reports from these countries have shown that proportions of underweight children, prevalence of stunting among children and micro-nutrient deficiency in children, pregnant and nursing mothers are high and widespread. The situation is more severe in the countries affected by conflict and the countries in the transition. Fortunately, many international development partners and the state governments are working together to fight against this problem and working through several global and national initiatives to attain objectives of Millennium Development Goal 1 by 2015. These initiatives ad...

by Yadav Sharma Bajagai The Nepalese economy is fundamentally agrarian and the agriculture contributes to approximately one third of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the largest source of informal employment to the people.   Reducing poverty, improving food security and achieving sustainable development cannot be imagined in the agrarian economy like Nepal without inclusive development of agriculture sector. Two major requirements for the development of agriculture sector in our context are adequate investment and conducive policies.  One of the major constraints faced by the agriculture sector in Nepal is the under-investment from both public and private sectors. Ministry of Agriculture Development is receiving approximately 3% of national budget which is not sufficient to promote adequate agricultural growth and ensure food security to ever-growing population. Out of this inadequate allocation, significant amount of public expenditure is being expended to gi...

by Yadav Sharma Bajagai Development aid or assistance is the major financial source in developing countries after rich countries made an agreement in 1970 to donate 0.7% of their gross national income annually as official international development assistance. However, it is widely criticized that these development aids have more negative impacts than benefits in overall socioeconomic developments of poorer nations. The development aid in Africa and its long term impact has been described here as an example of ‘shifting the burden’ system archetype.  Figure: Causal Loop Diagram of Aid dependency in African Nations

The World Bank has recently published its regular publication " The World Development Report 2013 ". This year the report has been published with the theme "JOB". The report has highlighted the importance of job in development process. Some interesting numerical facts highlighted by the report are as below. ·     1.6 billion people working for a wage or a salary 1.5 billion people working in farming and self-employment 77% labor force participation by women in Vietnam 28% labor force participation by women in Pakistan 39% of manufacturing jobs are in micro-enterprises in Chile 97% of manufacturing jobs are in micro-enterprises in Ethiopia Double employment growth in a firm in Mexico over 35 years 10 times employment growth in a firm in the United States over 35 years 115 million children working in hazardous conditions 21 million victims of forced labor 600 million jobs needed over 15 years to keep current employment rates 90 million people ...