More security or less insecurity

We depart from the conventional quest for ‘Completely Secure Systems’ and ask ‘How can we be more Secure’. We draw heavily from the evolution of the Theory of Justice and the arguments against the institutional approach to Justice. Central to our argument is the identification of redressable insecurity, or weak links. Our contention is that secure systems engineering is not really about building perfectly secure systems but about redressing manifest insecurities.Final Accepted Versio

More security or less insecurity (transcript of discussion)

The purpose of this talk is to explore the possibility of an exploitable analogy between approaches to secure system design and theories of jurisprudence. The prevailing theory of jurisprudence in the West at the moment goes back to Hobbes. It was developed by Immanuel Kant and later by Rousseau, and is sometimes called the contractarian model after Rousseau’s idea of the social contract. It’s not the sort of contract that you look at and think, oh gosh, that might be nice, I might think about opting in to that, it’s more like a pop up licence agreement that says, do you want to comply with this contract, or would you rather be an outlaw. So you don’t get a lot of choice about it. Sometimes the same theory, flying the flag of Immanuel Kant, is called transcendental institutionalism, because the basic approach says, you identify the legal institutions that in a perfect world would govern society, and then you look at the processes and procedures, the protocols that everyone should follow in order to enable those institutions to work, and then you say, right, that can’t be transcended, so therefore there’s a moral imperative for everyone to do it. So this model doesn’t pay any attention to the actual society that emerges, or to the incentives that these processes actually place on various people to act in a particular way. It doesn’t look at any interaction effects, it simply says, well you have to behave in this particular way because that’s what the law says you have to do, and the law is the law, and anybody who doesn’t behave in that way is a criminal, or (in our terms) is an attackerFinal Accepted Versio

One size fits all? Female Headed Households, Income Risk, and Access to Resources

Studies dealing with productivity in female (FHH) and male headed households (MHH) find that FHH appear to be either less, equally, or more productive compared to MHH. Lower productivity of FHH is often explained by insecure access to land, while the findings of higher productivity largely remain unexplained. This paper is an attempt to reconcile these contrasting findings by constructing a model that accounts for productivity effects arising from secure land rights and the risk of falling short of income. Both affect productivity, but they do so in opposite directions. While tenure insecurity tends to decrease labor effort, income risks increase it as subsistence farmers want to avoid falling (deeper) into poverty. Depending on which of these risks prevails in the perception of farmers, they become either more or less productive than a benchmark farmer who faces none of these constraints. The model is tested using data from Kenya where FHH are categorized by different land tenure security schemes. The results from a stochastic cost frontier model establish that FHH facing tenure insecurity are less productive compared to MHH. However, this result only obtains in case households do not face income risks.Female headed households, tenure insecurity, income risk, Consumer/Household Economics,

Food System and Food Security Study for the City of Cape Town

Food insecurity is a critical, but poorly understood, challenge for the health and development of Capetonians. Food insecurity is often imagined as hunger, but it is far broader than that. Households are considered food secure when they have “physical and economic access to sufficient and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (WHO/FAO 1996). Health is not merely the absence of disease, but also encompasses good nutrition and healthy lifestyles. Individuals in a food insecure household and/or community are at greater risk due to diets of poor nutritional value, which lowers immunity against diseases. In children, food insecurity is known to stunt growth and development and this places the child in a disadvantaged position from early on in life. Any improvement in the nutritional profile of an individual is beneficial and as the family and community become more food secure, the greater the benefit. It further reduces the demand on health services. In the Cape Town context, food insecurity manifests not just as hunger, but as long term consumption of a limited variety of foods, reduction in meal sizes and choices to eat calorie dense, nutritionally poor foods in an effort to get enough food to get by. Associated with this food insecurity are chronic malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency, particularly among young children, and an increase in obesity, diabetes and other diet related illnesses. Food insecurity is therefore not about food not being available, it is about households not having the economic or physical resources to access enough of the right kind of food. The latest study of food insecurity in Cape Town found that 75 percent of households in sampled low-income areas were food insecure, with 58 percent falling into the severely food insecurity category. Food insecurity is caused by household scale characteristics, such as income poverty, but also by wider structural issues, such as the local food retail environment and the price and availability of healthy relative to less healthy foods. The City of Cape Town therefore commissioned a study based on the following understanding of the food security challenge facing the City. “Food security or the lack thereof is the outcome of complex and multi-dimensional factors comprising a food system. Therefore, food insecurity is the result of failures or inefficiencies in one or more dimensions of the food system. This necessitates a holistic analysis of the food system that than can provide insights into the various components of the system, especially in our context as a developing world city.” The call for a food system study sees the City of Cape Town taking the lead nationally, being the first metropolitan area to seek to engage in the food system in a holistic manner and attempting to understand what role the city needs to play in the food system. The City must work towards a food system that is reliable, sustainable and transparent. Such a system will generate household food security that is less dependent on welfarist responses to the challenge. In this context, reliability is taken to mean stable and consistent prices, the nutritional quality of available and accessible food, and food safety. Sustainability means that the food system does not degrade the environmental, economic and social environment. Finally, transparency refers to the legibility of the system and its control by the state and citizens

The prevalence and predictors of food insecurity among HIV-infected women in Cape Town, South Africa: A cross sectional study

Background: Food insecurity is a major public health concern in most settings where the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is prevalent, and it affects women disproportionately. However, the prevalence of food insecurity and associated risk factors for women who are living with HIV (WLH) in South Africa is under researched. Methods: The researcher conducted a secondary, cross-sectional analysis of 346 HIV-infected women aged between 18 and 45, in Gugulethu, Cape Town. All participants were 12 months postpartum and enrolled into the MCH-ART study, a large implementation science study of antiretroviral use in pregnancy. For this study, women completed a 10-item household food security questionnaire that categorised food security status into household-level food insecurity, individual level food insecurity and children hunger. Using this tool, the level of food insecurity was categorised as food insecurity (“yes” to up to four questions), experiencing food insecurity (“yes” to five questions or more) and free from food insecurity (“no” to all questions). Results: Overall, the mean age was 29 years (SD: 5.46); 25 % of the women completed high school; 61 % were unemployed; nearly 66 % were free from food insecurity; and 25 % experienced food insecurity. Women who were employed were less likely to experience food insecurity when compared to those who were not employed (OR=0.54; 95 % CI: 0.32-0.90; p= 0.01). Those who completed high school were associated with food security than the ones who did not complete high school (OR= 0.5; 95 % CI: 0.28-0.97; p= 0.04). After adjusting for maternal age, marital and cohabiting status, education attainment, and parity, employment remained a significant predictor of experiencing food security (AOR= 0.55; 95 % CI: 0.32- 0.95 p=0.03) and educational attainment was no longer associated with food insecurity. Conclusions: The prevalence of food insecurity was relatively low in the urban-based sample of HIV-infected women. However, most of these HIV-infected women were obese and overweight. Thus, there is a clear need for more research to explore issues of food insecurity and nutrition in HIV-infected South African women

Income insecurity and underemployment in Indonesia's informal sector

Recent legislation to provide income security to workers in Indonesia covers only those in the formal sector, initially. Workers in the informal sector are at an even greater risk of income loss and are more vulnerable to shocks due to lower average incomes. The author addresses the question of whether there is a rationale for income security schemes for Indonesia's informal sector. Research suggests that, through a range of existing public programs, Indonesia's government already provides important security mechanisms for informal sector workers, and must continue to do so. The author finds no compelling evidence of the need for a nationwide income security scheme for such workers. The author's argument against a new income security scheme is based on three main conclusions. First, only about 12 percent of the informal sector workforce and even less of the formal sector is underemployed. Second, this level of underemployment does not represent compelling empirical evidence of income insecurity. The connection between underemployment and income insecurity is problematic in theory and remains unsubstantiated by national survey data. Third, many mechanisms already exist in Indonesia to mitigate the disruption caused by income insecurity. Households and communities use private strategies to smooth consumption and investment and the government is already active in providing additional income security. Not only does empirical evidence fail to justify a major new policy response, but most evidence suggests that such a response is not presently necessary. The author suggests that any new initiative directed at income insecurity should be limited in scope and should focus on Eastern Indonesia and on remote or isolated areas of Java, areas with below average incomes. If concerns about income insecurity persist, money should be spend finding out where it actually is before implementing a nationwide scheme to deal with it.Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Public Health Promotion,Health Economics&Finance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Poverty Assessment,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Work&Working Conditions

Liberians living in the U.S.: an examination of post-resettlement food insecurity and associated factors

Objectives: To examine post-resettlement food insecurity rate and its relationship with socio-demographic and pre-resettlement characteristics among Liberian households; and assess differences in the amount of money spent on food per month by household characteristics. Design: Semi-structured in-home interviews. Setting: Southeast region of the US. Subjects: Liberian women caring for children 12 years of age or younger (n = 33). Results: Participants have lived in the US for 12 years on average. Food insecurity of any level was indicated in 61 % of households and child hunger or severe food insecurity was reported in 30 % of households. Food insecurity was higher among women who were aged 40 or older, had high school or less education and those making less than $1000 per month. Women who had arrived in the US older than 15 years of age were more likely to be food insecure. On average, participants spent$ 109 monthly on groceries per household member. In estimating differences, results indicated that older women, those who experienced food insecurity and did not have a car spent more money on food than their counterparts (P ≤ .10). Conclusions: Liberian women experience high levels of food insecurity upon resettlement. Besides poor economic conditions, pre-resettlement characteristics such as number of years in refugee camps and age upon arrival (school age vs. older than school age) were associated with food security status. These findings call for future research to further understand what role pre-resettlement living conditions and experiences affect food choices, budgeting and thereby food security status among refugees

Regional Differences in Use of Food Stamps and Food Pantries by Low Income Households in the United States

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of food stamps and private food assistance in different regions of the country during 1999, a year when food stamp use dropped to its lowest point in the recent past. Our results show that impoverished families in the South are less likely than those in other regions to obtain private food assistance, although they are more likely than those in the West or Midwest to use food stamps. Low-income families in the Northeast are also more likely than those in the West or Midwest to use food stamps.food insecurity, food stamps, food pantries, Food Security and Poverty,

Is food insecurity more severe in South Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa?: A comparative analysis using household expenditure survey data

"This paper uses data from national household expenditure surveys to explore whether food insecurity is more severe in South Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa. It employs two indicators of the diet quantity dimension of food insecurity, or the inability to access sufficient food: the prevalence of food energy deficiency and the prevalence of severe food energy deficiency. It also employs two indicators of the diet quality dimension, indicating lack of access to nutritious food: the prevalence of low diet diversity and the percent of energy from staple foods. It finds the regions' food energy deficiency prevalences to be quite close (51 percent in South Asia, 57 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa). However, the prevalence of severe food energy deficiency, which is more life threatening, is higher in Sub-Saharan Africa (51 percent versus 35 percent in South Asia). From a diet quality standpoint, the regions appear to suffer from a comparable and high reliance on staple foods in the diet to the neglect of foods rich in protein and micronutrients, but that Sub-Saharan Africa may be doing worse, as reflected in less diverse diets. The results confirm that both regions suffer from deep food insecurity problems but point to Sub-Saharan Africa as the region with the more severe problem, particularly when it comes to the diet quantity dimension of food insecurity. In deciding which region should be given greater emphasis in the international allocation of scarce development resources, the fact that the numbers of people affected by food insecurity are higher in South Asia should be taken into consideration." from Authors' Abstractfood security, Food energy deficiency, Diet quality,

Influence of Family Size, Household Food Security Status, and Child Care Practices on the Nutritional Status of Under-five Children in Ile-Ife, Nigeria

Fertility pattern and reproductive behaviours affect infant death in Nigeria. Household food insecurity and poor care practices also place children at risk of morbidity and mortality. The objectives of this study were to assess the influence of family size, household food security status, and child care practices on the nutritional status of under-five children in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. The study employed a descriptive cross-sectional design. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 423 mothers of under-five children and their children in the households selected through multistagesampling methods. Food-insecure households were five times more likely than secure households to have wasted children (crude OR=5.707, 95 percent CI=1.31-24.85). Children with less educated mothers were significantly more likely to be stunted. The prevalence of food insecurity among households in Ile-Ife was high. Households with food insecurity and less educated mothers were more likely to have malnourished children (Afr J Reprod Health 2010; 14[4]: 123-132)