European External Assistance & Food Security: The End of the Line?

In 2007 the European Commission will introduce an ambitious reform of its external assistance structure. Under the new framework the current legal instruments and budget lines supporting food security interventions will be dissolved, with actions to be continued in the form of a “Thematic Programme”, complemented by new geographic and humanitarian instruments. An early prognosis suggests that the scope for EC food security support under these instruments and following the dissolution of the ‘ Food Security Budget line ' is uncertain. Recent official communications from the Commission to the European Parliament and Council afford low visibility to food security despite an expressed commitment to “poorer countries, difficult partnerships and fragile and failed states” The likely implications of ongoing discussions regarding a new European Development Policy Statement (2005) and forthcoming structures for external action under the Financial Perspectives (2007-2013) are also less than clear. Drawing from an analysis of these issues the paper identifies three policy challenges facing the European food security agenda in the future. These include: (i) Maintaining the value added of EC food security support (ii) Responding to countries in transition and crisis (iii) Ensuring policy coherence.Note:

Vulnerability to Hunger: Improving Food Crisis Responses in Fragile States

The paper examines the imperative for improved classification and analysis of food crises in different fragile contexts. Recognizing the persistence and protracted nature of food crises, the paper questions how prevention and response mechanisms could be improved to help decisionmakers better address the underlying causes of vulnerability and hunger. The paper draws on case study information to examine real life opportunities and constraints in applying a recently developed food security classification system, named the analytical frameworks at country level, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). Developed originally in Somalia, this classification framework is now being applied in a range of country contexts within and outside of Africa by national governments, UN agencies, donors and NGO organizations. The paper draws on early applications of the IPC to consider opportunities and constraints in the application of common classification systems, taking into account issues of institutional adaptation, methodologies, data and analysis.food security, humanitarian assistance, complex emergencies

An exploration of the drivers and indicators of emergence in the offshore wind power industry

The emergence of new industries is a rare but critical part of the development and growth of any economy. Successive governments have attempted to nurture the development of specific new industries with mixed success – some industries emerge only to disappear after a short time. There is a substantial body of literature which looks at specific aspects of the phenomenon of industry emergence from within the evolutionary economics and business management domains. This body of knowledge is focused on mass-manufacturing industry and constrained by a post-hoc nature of empirical studies to date. This is the first research to study an industry during its emergence and in doing so addresses a limitation of the existing research identified by authors in the field. The selected industry, Offshore Wind Power, is a complex product system industry thereby helping to extend the existing knowledge base from its previous mass-manufacture focus. This research seeks to address the applicability of mass manufacture focussed research to a complex product system industry, and to gain additional insights through observing emergence ‘as it happens’. The research is therefore exploratory in nature and is guided by the existing literature on drivers and indicators of emergence. The research shows that certain indicators of emergence (e.g. dominant design, accelerating sales growth) are not applicable in this industry and that some drivers and indicators are linked in causal loops – e.g. growth and legitimacy. This research uses a ‘systems lens’ to synthesise an understanding of how the various single factors previously researched interact. This systems approach leads to a proposed framework for industry interaction to promote both emergence and viability. This framework is tested against a recent counter case of a complex product system industry that has not reached emergence and the utility of the framework demonstrated.The emergence of new industries is a rare but critical part of the development and growth of any economy. Successive governments have attempted to nurture the development of specific new industries with mixed success – some industries emerge only to disappear after a short time. There is a substantial body of literature which looks at specific aspects of the phenomenon of industry emergence from within the evolutionary economics and business management domains. This body of knowledge is focused on mass-manufacturing industry and constrained by a post-hoc nature of empirical studies to date. This is the first research to study an industry during its emergence and in doing so addresses a limitation of the existing research identified by authors in the field. The selected industry, Offshore Wind Power, is a complex product system industry thereby helping to extend the existing knowledge base from its previous mass-manufacture focus. This research seeks to address the applicability of mass manufacture focussed research to a complex product system industry, and to gain additional insights through observing emergence ‘as it happens’. The research is therefore exploratory in nature and is guided by the existing literature on drivers and indicators of emergence. The research shows that certain indicators of emergence (e.g. dominant design, accelerating sales growth) are not applicable in this industry and that some drivers and indicators are linked in causal loops – e.g. growth and legitimacy. This research uses a ‘systems lens’ to synthesise an understanding of how the various single factors previously researched interact. This systems approach leads to a proposed framework for industry interaction to promote both emergence and viability. This framework is tested against a recent counter case of a complex product system industry that has not reached emergence and the utility of the framework demonstrated

Social safety nets in fragile states : a community-based school feeding program in Togo

This paper reviews a small community-based school feeding program launched in Togo in response to the 2007/08 food price crisis. The discussion focuses on the operational and policy lessons emerging from the program, to better understand opportunities for scale up and sustainability in the future. A focus of the discussion is how to build safety nets in fragile states and in situations where there is weak and fragmented government capacity to deliver services to disadvantaged and vulnerable communities. In this context school feeding is explored as an entry point through the use of informal mechanisms based on the commitment of communities and civil society. The analysis is premised on quantitative and qualitative analysis carried out at program sites. The discussion identifies the operational challenges and opportunities in customizing school feeding within Togo with an emphasis on targeting, cost effectiveness, procurement and institutional aspects. Evidence on the economic and social benefits of the program is also presented, focusing on dietary impacts, as well as household and local community effects. The objective of the discussion is to share lessons learned from evaluation findings so that they can be useful for implementing similar programs in the future in Togo itself or in other countries. Findings from the analysis highlight the possibilities of implementing school feeding in a low capacity setting and the scope for using the program as a springboard towards a broader and more comprehensive social safety net.Food&Beverage Industry,Education For All,Safety Nets and Transfers,Disability,Rural Poverty Reduction

Assessing safety net readiness in response to food price volatility

In 2008, when food prices rose precipitously to record highs, international attention and local policy in many countries focused on safety nets as part of the response. Now that food prices are high again, the issue of appropriate responses is again on the policy agenda. This note sets out a framework for making quick, qualitative assessments of how well countries'safety nets prepare them for a rapid policy response to rising food prices should the situation warrant. The framework is applied using data from spring 2011, presenting a snap?shot analysis of what is a dynamically changing situation. Based on this data safety net readiness is assessed in 13 vulnerable countries based on the following criteria: the presence of safety net programs, program coverage, administrative capacity, and to a lesser degree, targeting effectiveness. It is argued that these criteria will remain the same throughout time, even if the sample countries affected will be expected to vary. Based on thisanalysis the note highlights that though a number of countries are more prepared than they were in 2008, there is still a significant medium term agenda on safety net preparedness in the face of crisis. In this context, strategic lessons from the 2008 food crisis response are presented to better understand the response options and challenges facing governments and policy makers. The note concludes by calling for continued investment and scale up of safety nets to mitigate poverty impacts and help prevent long term setbacks in nutrition and poverty.Food&Beverage Industry,Safety Nets and Transfers,Emerging Markets,Rural Poverty Reduction,Regional Economic Development

Integration of motion information during binocular rivalry

AbstractWhen two moving gratings are superimposed in normal viewing they often combine to form a pattern that moves with a single direction of motion. Here, we investigated whether the same mechanism underlies pattern motion when drifting gratings are presented independently to the two eyes. We report that, with relatively large circular grating patches (4 deg), there are periods of monocular dominance in which one eye's orientation alone is perceived, usually moving orthogonal to the contours (component motion). But, during the transitions from one monocular view to the other, a fluid mosaic is perceived, consisting of contiguous patches, each containing contours of only one of the gratings. This entire mosaic often appears to move in a single direction (pattern motion), just as when two gratings are literally superimposed. Although this implies that motion signals from the perceptually suppressed grating continue to influence the perception of motion, an alternative possibility is that it reflects a strategy that involves integrating directional information from the contiguous single-grating patches. To test between these possibilities, we performed a second experiment with very small grating stimuli that were about the same size as the contiguous single-grating patches in the mosaic (1-deg diameter). Despite the fact that the form of only one grating was perceived, we report that pattern motion was still perceived on about one third of trials. Moreover, a decrease in the occurrence of pattern motion was apparent when the contrast and spatial frequency of the gratings were made more different from each other. This phenomenon clearly demonstrates an independent binocular interaction for form and motion

The t-improper chromatic number of random graphs

We consider the $t$-improper chromatic number of the Erd{\H o}s-R{\'e}nyi random graph $G(n,p)$. The t-improper chromatic number $\chi^t(G)$ of $G$ is the smallest number of colours needed in a colouring of the vertices in which each colour class induces a subgraph of maximum degree at most $t$. If $t = 0$, then this is the usual notion of proper colouring. When the edge probability $p$ is constant, we provide a detailed description of the asymptotic behaviour of $\chi^t(G(n,p))$ over the range of choices for the growth of $t = t(n)$.Comment: 12 page

Neighbourhood effects and community spillovers in the Australian youth labour market

Neighbourhood effects refer to the situation whereby residential location impacts on the social outcomes of individuals, above and beyond what would be expected from their personal and family characteristics. A number of theories of neighbourhood effects exist. These can be broadly classified as theories of collective socialisation theories; contagion-based or \u27epidemic\u27 theories; and information network theories. Existing Australian research has focused mainly on the impact of neighbourhoods on youth education decisions. In contrast, this study models the probability of unemployment as a function of personal characteristics, family structure and neighbourhood composition. [Executive summary, ed

Vibronic interactions in the visible and near-infrared spectra of C60− anions

Electron-phonon coupling is an important factor in understanding many properties of the C60 fullerides. However, there has been little success in quantifying the strength of the vibronic coupling in C60 ions, with considerable disagreement between experimental and theoretical results. We will show that neglect of quadratic coupling in previous models for C60- ions results in a significant overestimate of the linear coupling constants. Including quadratic coupling allows a coherent interpretation to be made of earlier experimental and theoretical results which at first sight are incompatible