Climate Change, Crop Yields, and Undernutrition: Development of a Model to Quantify the Impact of Climate Scenarios on Child Undernutrition

Background: Global climate change is anticipated to reduce future cereal yields and threaten food security, thus potentially increasing the risk of undernutrition. The causation of undernutrition is complex, and there is a need to develop models that better quantify the potential impacts of climate change on population health

Law’s power to safeguard global health: a Lancet–O’Neill Institute, Georgetown University Commission on Global Health and the Law

The law-–global, national, and subnational–-plays a vital, yet often underappreciated, role in safeguarding and promoting the public’s health. In this article, we launch the Lancet-O’Neill Institute, Georgetown University Commission on Global Health and the Law. Commissioners from around the world will explore the critical opportunities and challenges of using law as a tool, while evaluating the evidence base for legal interventions. The Commission aims to define and systematically describe the current landscape of law that affects global health and safety. Commissioners were chosen from disciplines that range from health, policy, and law to economics and governance. The Commission aims to present a compelling argument as to why law should be viewed as a major determinant of health and safety and how the law can be used in a powerful and innovative way to address the global burdens of injury and disease. Above all, the Commission will pursue justice, finding innovative ways to narrow existing and unconscionable health inequalitie

Egyptian Agricultural Exports Competitiveness

The study dealt with the competitiveness of Egypt’s agricultural exports for the major commodity groups: Meat and meat preparations, Dairy products and bird eggs, Cereals and cereals preparations, Vegetables and Fruits, Sugar, sugar preparations and honey, Feeding stuff of animals, Beverages, Tobacco, Oils and fats, and Textile fiber and their waste. The study has not restricted the estimated measure of the competitiveness to only the classical Revealed Comparative Advantage Index (RCA), it applied the other elaborated indices, in order to avoid unfavorable conclusions due to policy distortions and/or the export (supply) pattern and the Import (demand) pattern of the specified commodities. The relative export advantage index, [Ln(RXA)], results coincided with the RCA results in all food groups, which means that the “policy induced distortions” had the same impact on all studied food groups. The RTA (Relative Trade Advantage) and RC (Revealed Competitiveness) indices consist with the real world economic phenomenon of two ways trade, i.e. the price and quantity differences of exports and imports. If exports share in the world market either surpassed much the imports, due to the price (quality), quantity (magnitude), or if both were too small (the case of oils and fats) then the results of RTA and RC would be quite different but more reliable than RCA. The study provided evidences for such conclusion. It seems that RC gives the most reliable results, as it considers the resultant from both values of exports and the percent of imports covered by the exports. Thereof, RC introduced vegetables and fruits to the front of competitiveness of Egypt's exports, as such group showed the highest value of exports and the second order of the (Exports/Imports) %. It was followed by textiles and fiber crops at the second order of the exports value but the first order with respect to (Exports/Imports) %. Although the exports value of beverages group came at the fourth order after cereals and preparations, dairy products and Eggs and sugar products, it surpassed much all of them as (Exports/Imports) %, which was around 168%, while it was 20%, 18% and 5% for the other three groups. Thereof, both RTA and RC ranked sugar products as number 4 with respect to the comparative advantage. The analysis showing that the (Exports/Imports)% is the dominant criteria in ranking the agro-food groups according to the competitiveness and that RC is the most sensitive index, particularly when we go gradually down to the agro-food groups with smaller and smaller export values. Therefore, it looks reasonable, to see dairy products (Exports/Imports) of about 18% comes number 5 followed by cereals of (Exports/Imports)% around 5%, where RTA, as it gives more importance to the volume of exports, ranked them in an opposite order. The best -fitted ARIMA model applied for Egyptian Fruits and Vegetables Exports was (0, 1, 1). Forecasting results implies that the comparative export advantage of Egyptian Fruits and Vegetables to the world market seems to decrease over the forthcoming decade. The best-fitted ARIMA model applied for Egyptian Textile and Fiber Exports was (0, 0, 1). Forecasting results implies that the comparative export advantage of Egyptian textiles and fiber crops to the world market seems to decrease over the forthcoming decade. The best-fitted ARIMA model applied for Egyptian Sugars and Honey exports was (1, 1, 2). Forecasting results implies that the comparative export advantage of Egypt in Sugar and Honey (Sugar processed products) to the world market seems to increase slightly over the forthcoming decade, with moderate fluctuation

Egyptian agricultural trade pattern and competitiveness

As the globalization Era that has recently enveloped all world countries the domestic markets of each country has also been strongly amalgamated into the international market. Accordingly, the implications of the international trade on the domestic agricultural trade of each country have significantly emerged. However the extend of amalgamation and interaction, would mainly depend upon the trade pattern of that country. These patterns are subject to the influence of domestic as well as international trade policies and factors directly related to crops and the production of goods that can affect the trade of agricultural products. Therefore, the main objectives of this study are the identification of Egypt’s major trade partners, the analysis of the Egypt comparative advantages in agricultural trade, the competitiveness of the Egyptian agricultural exports with respect to the international markets, i.e. to how extend the Egyptian agricultural sector has a greater or lower share in total agricultural exports than they have in the world as a whole, and finally a quantitative outlook of agricultural markets. The law of comparative advantage refers to the ability of a party (an individual, a firm, or a country) to produce a particular good or service at a lower opportunity cost than another party. It is the ability to produce a product with the highest relative efficiency given all the other products that could be produced. Comparative advantage explains how trade can create value for both parties even when one can produce all goods with fewer resources than the other. The net benefits of such an outcome are called gains from trade

Irrigation and schistosomiasis in Africa: ecological aspects

Schistosomiasis / Waterborne diseases / Environmental control / Ecology / Public health / Surface irrigation / Water storage / Design / Irrigation programs / Irrigation management / Canals / Velocity / Snails / Africa / Morocco / Sudan / Cameroon / Egypt / Burkina Faso / Kenya / Zimbabwe / Gezira Irrigation Scheme / Lagdo Dam / Gulf of Guinea / Mwea Scheme / Mushandike

The politics of evidence: methodologies for understanding the global land rush

Since the most recent ‘land rush’ precipitated by the convergent ‘crises’ of fuel, feed and food in 2007-08, the debate on the consequences of land investments has been massively heightened, with widespread media coverage, policy commentary and civil society engagement. The ‘land rush’ of recent years has been accompanied by a ‘literature rush’, with a fast-growing body of reports, articles, tables and books with varied purposes, metrics and methods. ‘Land grabbing’ is now a hot political topic around the world, discussed amongst the highest circles. This is why getting the facts right is really important, and having effective methodologies is crucial. Several global initiatives have set out to aggregate information on land deals, and to describe their scale, character and distribution. All have contributed to building a better picture of the phenomenon, but all have struggled with methodology. This JPS Forum identifies a profound uncertainty about what it is that is being counted, questions methods used to collate and aggregate ‘land grabs’, and calls for a second phase of land grab research which abandons the aim of deriving total numbers of hectares in favour of more specific, grounded and transparent methods.ESR