Aid and Development Archive

This summer’s drought in the U.S. has triggered the third major food price spike in the past five years, leaving the world’s poor to wonder if global leaders learned anything from the first two. To judge by their actions so far, they haven’t. The food crisis of the past five years has indeed energized food and agricultural policymakers, bringing long-overdue attention to chronic problems, from underinvestment in smallholder agriculture to overreliance on high-input industrial production. It has seen welcome new institutions brought into being and existing ones revitalized, stimulating new investment in agricultural research and serving as a reminder that […]

Education has been found to have two categories of influences. In terms of monetary influences, the higher one’s level of education, the less likely one is to be unemployed or in poverty, and the more likely one is to be advantaged in terms of income and income security. Moreover, what is true of individuals is also true of communities and nations. In terms of nonmonetary influences, education has been found to affect personal health and nutrition practices, child rearing and participation in voluntary activities. It also influences the efficiency of public communications and the degree to which adults seek new […]

More than half of the world’s total population, currently roughly 7 billion, now lives in cities. As the world’s population increases to a projected 9 billion by 2050, so too will the trend toward greater urbanization. Urban growth is most rapid in the developing world, where cities grow by an average of 5 million residents every month. By 2050, urban dwellers will likely account for 67 percent of total population in the developing world and 86 percent in the developed world. Many of the world’s cities, and some of its biggest, may be particularly vulnerable to climate change and the […]