https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

Framework Convention on Climate Change

Scholars of culture, humanities and social sciences have increasingly come to an appreciation of the importance of the legal domain in social life, while critically engaged socio-legal scholars around the world have taken up the task of understanding "Law's Empire" in all of its cultural, political, and economic dimensions. The questions arising from these intersections, and addressing imperialisms past and present forms the subject matter of a special symposium issue of Social Identities under the editorship of Griffith University's Rob McQueen, and UBC's Wes Pue and with contributions from McQueen, Ian Duncanson, Renisa Mawani, David Williams, Emma Cunliffe, Chidi Oguamanam, W. Wesley Pue, Fatou Camara, and Dianne Kirkby. This paper introduces the volume, forthcoming in late 2007. The central problematique of this issue has previously been explored through the 2005 Law's Empire conference, an informal but vibrant postcolonial legal studies network.

Law's Empire

政治自由主义 = Political liberalism

Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation

One of the World’s greatest challenges is to secure sufficient and healthy food for all, and to do so in an environmentally sustainable manner. This review explores the interrelationships of food, health, and environment, and their role in addressing chronic micronutrient deficiencies, also known as “hidden hunger”, affecting over two billion people worldwide. While the complexity and underlying determinants of undernutrition have been well-understood for decades, the scaling of food and nutrition system approaches that combine sustainable agriculture aimed at improved diet diversity and livelihoods have been limited in their development and implementation. However, an integrated system approach to reduce hidden hunger could potentially serve as a sustainable opportunity.

/pdf/the-role-of-food-and-nutrition-system-approaches-in-tackling-3037l16k8h.pdf

The Role of Food and Nutrition System Approaches in Tackling Hidden Hunger

From food availability to nutritional capabilities: Advancing food security analysis

This paper is a study of the determinants of the anthropometric status of preschool children in Mozambique. Using the 2003 Demographic and Health Survey, we provide insights into two main explanatory factors: the mother's schooling and the mother's nutrition knowledge. Rather than treating the mother's schooling as a black box, we analyze its interaction with the mother's nutrition knowledge and household wealth in order to elucidate the mechanisms underlying their ultimate effect on child height. The estimates obtained through instrumental variable regression show that the direct effect of the mother's schooling is large but that the rate at which it increases declines as her educational level rises. Primary education seems to be a key to enhance the mothers’ general knowledge, which then improves the allocation of resources in regard to children's well-being and the care for the child. A higher educational level attained by the mother is likely to play only a minimal and indirect role in her child's nutrition, by expanding her economic opportunities. This is because more educated mothers have also more qualified and time-consuming jobs, which reduces the time spent for childcare. Mothers with higher levels of nutrition knowledge, acquired primarily outside of school, are able to choose a more diversified diet for their children and, broadly speaking, to utilize food more effectively. Based on a second technique, the instrumental variable quantile regression, we are able to draw a double conclusion: that mothers’ nutrition knowledge contributes to height increases among extremely deprived children, and that mothers’ formal education and household wealth are slightly more important for relatively well-off children.

Child nutrition in Mozambique in 2003: the role of mother's schooling and nutrition knowledge.

Food insecurity, a complex and multi-faceted phenomenon, is currently one of the inter-national community’s main priorities, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). As food insecurity in this region is most widespread in pockets of extreme poverty, particularly in rural areas, traditional agricultural or general economic interventions alone are unlikely to generate substantial improvements. Instead, there is ample scope for social protection schemes. This paper investigates the role played by rapidly expanding cash transfers (CTs) in enhancing food security. First, it offers an innovative conceptual framework for explaining the channels through which CT programmes can affect the various aspects of food security. It also illustrates how specific design features of CT programmes may generate effects through little known pathways, such as women’s empowerment and improved intra-household decision-making. Second, based on this conceptual framework, the paper provides a systematic review of evidence of the effects of CT programmes on different aspects of food security in middle-income and low-income countries in SSA. A rigorous overview based on a comprehensive conceptual framework is missing from the literature, as most of the overview papers published to date have concentrated on the specific effects of CT programmes on monetary poverty, human capital accumulation or food expenditure. The paper shows that CTs offer great potential for enhancing households’ access to food, as long as they take full account of: the targeting of beneficiaries; the regularity of payments; the size of monetary transfers; the need to amass political support. In order to enhance all the different aspects of food security in the medium to long-term, CTs should be integrated with other interventions such as public works programmes, nutritional education, nutritional supplements for vulnerable groups, and economic policies. This is the main rationale behind the planned new phase of the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia. Francesco Burchi is researcher at the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut fur Entwicklungspolitik (DIE); Margherita Scarlato and Giorgio d'Agostino are researchers at the Department of Economics at Roma Tre University. Francesco Burchi is researcher at the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut fur Entwicklungspolitik (DIE); Margherita Scarlato and Giorgio d'Agostino are researchers at the Department of Economics at Roma Tre University.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/pop4.233

Addressing Food Insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Cash Transfers

This paper has a twofold objective: (a) to make a comprehensive review of different approaches to food security; (b) to develop a human development and capability approach to food security following the pioneering works of Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze. To our best knowledge, no paper has yet provided a systematic survey of the major approaches to food security. Starting from the analysis of food production, we highlight the value added provided by the capability approach and the human development paradigm. Then, we propose a methodology of analysis of food security through this approach, entailing three basic steps: (1) analysis of food entitlements; (2) analysis of basic nutritional capabilities; (3) analysis of the capability to be food secure. This way, it is possible to move beyond income-, entitlement-, or livelihoods-related frameworks, and to identify the root causes of food insecurity: food insecurity can be the result of lack of education, health or other basic capabilities that constitute people’s wellbeing. Therefore, it allows to situate the study within the broader topic of wellbeing, agency and freedom. Finally, we briefly discuss the role of food security for human development.

Francesco Burchi

Papers

The Role of Food and Nutrition System Approaches in Tackling Hidden Hunger

From food availability to nutritional capabilities: Advancing food security analysis

Child nutrition in Mozambique in 2003: the role of mother's schooling and nutrition knowledge.

Addressing Food Insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Cash Transfers

A Human Development and Capability Approach to Food Security: Conceptual Framework and Informational Basis