 Today's panel is unequal food systems, key approaches in exploring global hunger and food aid, and this panel will discuss the implications of food insecurity through a conflict development and health lens while exploring the role of international development efforts to mitigate famine and how to achieve food system recovery and regeneration in fragile states. The panel presentation to last 40 minutes, followed by plenty of time for questions from the audience. Please send in your questions using the Q&A function and interacting social media using the hashtag CSDC2021 and hashtag unequal food systems hashtags. Our first panelist is Professor Rupeg. She's a professor of international development studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and has worked with NORAD, the World Bank, represented Norway in CGI AR meetings and has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Food Policy Research Institute. Professor Rupeg would you like to start? Thank you very much Helen. Hello everybody and thanks for the invitation. I think we have very interesting funds now when it comes to the question of food systems. We have the food summit 2021 coming up with a food summit in the next month, end of next month. And I guess the summit has gotten a lot of publicity, not least because quite a big group of people from the academia have boycotted the summit as well as very many social society organizations. So I think that's a good sign in a way the different narrative, the different way of understanding what is the inequalities in the food system, what's the problem, what is it we want to transform. Basically everybody seems to agree that the global food system, all the food systems that is included in the global system, that we have the problems. But what are those problems and if we are going to get rid of the inequalities, what kind of inequalities and what kind of paths and how to deal with that. The reason why several people from academia and civil society organization boycotted the food summit is because of the CFS, the Committee on Food Security, did not kind of play an important role, at least not in the beginning, the lack of inclusion of agro-equality and food as a human right. So that was kind of the main for the boycotted. So I think this is just a good beginning or introduction to what I'm going to say now about different narratives. And I will focus on five different narratives on how we understand or describe or think about or look at both problems and when it comes to inequalities in the food system. So first is the neo-multiple understanding where I guess you all know that one with the focus on increased production and population increase as being the problem and the wind revolution kind of action to solve this. And also the role of technology in that narrative. So second we have the political economy narrative with the focus on poverty and inequalities as the way of understanding what are the problems and also definitely conflicts as most of the hungry people will live in conflicted areas. And also the kind of diamond and of course now the pandemic. Then third we have the capitalist narrative that the food system is set up to make profit, not the way that a Dutch hotel and every poking in particular have framed that narrative. And the problem is about how we kind of define goals, what values and our relations in the immediate. Fourth narrative, some of these narratives that are partly overlapping with that is what I call the food justice narrative. And it's an interesting piece from the financial in kind of changing the way we look at food to get food as a public good. And building very much on food as a right and the voluntary guidelines for food as right from 2004. And finally the fifth narrative that has quite a lot to do with the sustainable development goals and there is report that came out last year. And that narrative I call the funding narrative that if only the donors to put enough money on on table hunger, for example, and and the promise of sources and building the willingness to fund the action that you know that. So, when we talk about transformation, what and how, I think it's a big, big question and will be interesting to see what will be coming out of the food summit in relation to the action facts and game changing. Suggest them they have a thousand different ideas for game changing actions those. So my second point. And if I'm running out of time just stop me is on exploring the hunger and food aid and coming from no way I, I guess. I should mention that the World Food Program got the peace prize last year for combating hunger or contributing to better conditions for peace and for preventing the use of hunger as. And I think they were very worthy winner, of course, you can discuss that today the way the World Food Program is doing it is basically. Helping people without really solving the underlying reasons for why they they need help. And of course, also in relation to the peace price there is a discussion that hunger is not necessarily a reason for conflict, but conflict is definitely more hunger. But we did of course see in the food price prices years back. When the food prices increase, there were a lot of riots in many places in in the world so instability when it comes to the access and definitely trigger political instability. So I also have five points here that I think are important discussions points in relation to how to do better also when it comes to humanitarian action and food aid. The first one is on cash or client or buying locally or or imported. And I guess the trend is that more and more people and countries are in favor of good relief even as cash or and not in line and bring whatever you cannot to destroy local local markets. And second, I think this notion of saving lives for what which is really, really important. And humanitarian organizations are very good at saving lives, but the recovery phase, the long term development phase, and also the preface the preparedness phase that's, that's where a lot of efforts thinking are needed. And then third, the notion of doing no harm. Mary Anderson very well from the agenda. And years ago, I think it's still important we see calm is done in so many ways, so many parts of the world. It is now in Congo where W. H. O. in their Ebola project had really cause is sexual misuse of women in in an extremely sad way we had the Oxfam scandal. What we see is that aid, humanitarian aid very much reinforce inequalities and cause you your problems, please. Then we have this one notion of broke or broken, but the center of global development from the agenda. And they are discussing is the humanitarian is the broke. The money is not, not by far enough and the needs are increasing a lot. And is it also broken to be need reform, we do it better in different ways. And what what they suggested was insurance financing as one, a different way. But they kind of started this discussion. Could we do it in in different ways. Is it a need for for this kind of reform. And finally, I think there was another discussion being raised by dark and dark and dull disasters that I thought was was interesting to what degree. And finance will base time and contribute to reducing that the misery and the suffering. If if we don't need to wait until the media. As is covering the. All the strategy that goes into kind of humanitarian crisis. If the if the disaster can become more dull, but politicians usually they don't get credit for being prepared or for preventing a crisis from happening they get the credit from after the crisis. They have sold it so that kind of stand by financing. As always a very interesting input into the discussion on how we can do better. So, how to conclude this. Finally, I kind of hope that maybe the call with and then make contribute towards new discussion, and that we could not continue where we are when it comes to inequality in the system, but that we can really learn something and do better. So, if I should say two main messages, it would be make peace and wide school meals if I should be very, very complete. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Ruth. I really think it's finished. Thank you for your presentation it was really enlightening and I think it set the scene for for the rest of the panel. I liked how you included that idea of Mary Anderson do no harm and then also thought about how food aid could then actually do harm through maybe the corruption of it and I think I did if anyone wants to ask any questions about at the end, and our next panelist will be drawing upon her research in school food aid programs in Mali. Dr. Elisabetta Arrhenio is a research fellow at Imperial College London. And as an economist with a focus on global food security issues, child and adolescent development and food related social protection programs and Dr. Elisabetta. Would you like to join. Hi, good morning, everyone. And thank you so much to the organizer for putting together this exciting conference and panel. So I will share my screen. Thank you so much, Ruth, for setting the scene as I mentioned, and I really couldn't agree more with your last words of conclusion because you mentioned school feeding which is one of my main areas of research. And yeah, that's great. Thank you so much. So today, I'm going to talk a little bit about research myself and other colleagues, such as how the jelly Jean-Pierre Franchin, I'm a do so good yellow and really are actually a broader team. And across the UK, Mali and the US have been doing on emergency food assistance and child development. And I'm going to talk a little bit about the contrasting effects that we may found when emergency food assistance is deployed on to important domains of child development to nutritional nutrition and education. So why should we bother with child development in conflict. So we have many, many children around the world that are experiencing conflict or not all other forms of violence in the world that this is the staggering figure of one in six children in the world and turns to be over the 57 million children. And we know from a vast literature that exposure to violence and conflict really can have devastating, devastating effects on children life forces through disrupted the nutritional and educational trajectories. And in fact, these effects not only stick with the child as they grow into adulthood, but also can have repercussion on the next generation. So it's really important to support children development domain, even, and especially more if they are experiencing conflict. And we have the food assistance is widely used in conflicts and other emergencies to address acute needs. So for instance, although there are being calls and actually cash transfers are increasing in their usage increasing in emergencies and other humanitarian settings still generalized distribution. So really the distribution of food parcel is still the biggest component of humanitarian assistance, assistance globally accounting for between 25 and 30% of global assistance. And then in the past two decades, we've been witnessing a steep increase in the number of school feeding programs that have been scaled up or introduced in humanitarian emergencies. And really this, these last bits relate to the point that roof made about not only thinking about humanitarian needs but also thinking about development and really food, food assistance can bridge this gap and social protection generally by contributing to supplement for needs that households in crisis space but also by fostering nutrition and potentially education for instance that as in the case of school meals, they can really contribute to development by supporting human capital accumulation of children. However, despite this very important potential role, we really don't know much about the effects of humanitarian food assistance and in general food assistance on child development in crisis. And in turn, this lack of knowledge translates into lack of action. So just to give you the example of education, education is considered one of the pillars of humanitarian interventions alongside food, shelter and health, yet only 2% of total humanitarian assistance goes through the show program so that we have a huge financing gap there. So we're going to explore these issues by using the Malian conflict as a case study. So we work specifically in Moctii that is in Central Mali, so it's around here, and Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. We have a structural food insecurity with millions of people that every year are considered by FAO and WFP as food insecure or extremely food insecure. And also we have very low educational outcomes, even for Sub-Saharan African standards. For instance, we have on average adults have only two years of schooling and primary enrollment rate which on average in the continents are around 80 to 90% here are below 60%. So we have a really deprived context. We also gender inequality education. So when we started to do this research, we didn't, our plan was not to evaluate humanitarian food assistance on child development. We had completely different plans that were to evaluate the government schoolmates program on child development and agriculture. So we started our research in 2012. We did our baseline study and we were ready to roll out our randomized control trial on school feeding. And then after a month we completed our baseline, we had a good data. And basically, especially in Central Northern Mali, there is a lot of violence that kicks in, a lot of insecurity. We have development partners and governments that kind of run away from the areas that are most affected. And we have the humanitarian sector coming in. And specifically we focus on WFP food assistance. So I'm going to draw on some three, four key findings from these two papers. So these are papers that actually are part of some special issues that Tillman has edited. So, yeah, if you're interested in the area of food assistance in conflict and emergency, I really invite you to have a look at not only at these two papers, but really at the collection of papers because they're really interesting. And given the little time, I will focus on four main findings. So the first of all relates to how food assistance was deployed. First of all, when we started to do the research, so we got money to come back to go back to the thousands five years after the baseline, and we went to both households and villages that we initially sampled for our research. And we really did a careful investigation, not only with quantitative tools, but also really interviewing humanitarian actors, WFP, but also other actors and also villagers to understand what happened on the ground because one main finding was that it was not clear how food assistance was deployed. There is a crisis, a lot of actors come in and there is a bit of a mess and it seems there isn't really a lot of organization, not organization, but really it's difficult to understand how things went on the ground. In fact, when we look at our villages and households access to aid, we saw that households that were most affected by the conflict as measured by the proximity to our groups were actually the ones that obtained less aid. And this is a bit counterintuitive if we think that aid should be prioritized to most affected population. And the other hand also reflects the fact that is actually when a conflict kicks in is actually most more difficult to get more affected also. So I think it's important to kind of have this broader overview how aid was deployed. In our sample, 65% of households did not receive any form of food assistance and 23% received the general distribution so really packages like these of food and 60% received school feeding. The second main finding relates to the welfare, so food security and broader welfare indicators of the households. And we see that actually receiving either type of food assistance, whether it was a GFT or school feeding, improved the household welfare indicator as measured by, for instance, total expenditure or food expenditure. This is good news. When we look at the nutritional indicators of kids as measuring by height, we don't see a strong effect on children's growth and unless households receive one more than one forms of food assistance. There may be also measurement errors there because yeah, we can leave that for the Q&A. And this is the findings from the John Schumpf paper. So we find that overall there was improved the household food security and welfare. On the other hand, when we look at education, we find the diverging effects of the two forms of food assistance. For instance, this graph charts the coefficients relates to the effects of exposure to different forms of food assistance, so any aid, school feeding and generalized distribution. And you can see here that if a household had a child that was enrolled in school feeding, actually the chances of this child to be enrolled in school were percentage points higher. And this is quite a large increase compared to the baseline very low enrollment rates in this region. Also, we would have a similar picture for grade attainment. So kids also not only are more likely to be in school, but they also are likely to do more years of education. However, so we find this positive effect of school feeding on child education. On the other hand, if we look at the effects of generalized distribution, we see that increases absenteeism a lot for the kids that whose households were receiving GFP, especially among boys. So this this effect is tangible in the sense that a child whose household was receiving GFP was more likely to increase to be more absent from school and additional day per week as compared to comparison kids. And one that we looked at the child labor we see that actually kids that are more absent are not tolerating around they're actually working more in the farm. So there is really this differential mechanism that we find through child labor. So just to conclude, what I would like you to become from this presentation is that there may be trade offs when we employed when we employ food assistance in emergencies. Because it really if we focus on child development and police and son education and the net effect will depend on how the transfer will offset the opportunity costs of labor. So school feeding provides an incentive to get to school because the kids will receive the transfer only if they are in school, while GFP doesn't allow doesn't doesn't doesn't give this incentive. And in fact, we find that the kids stay at home more. On the other hand, we do find that actually the effect of GFP on broader house or welfare was large in the school feeding so it really depends on what which ways are we attaching to this different dimensions. So, yeah, to conclude the combined findings from the studies really suggest that they're important enough to consider when providing food assistance during conflict, especially in this setting like Malibu where structural insecurity is very high to start with. And so, yes, this would be important to consider if we're joining program if we're programming this this program so thinking not only on the effects on nutrition but it's what happens on other important dimensions for development. So, yeah, if you have any question I'm happy to discuss later. And also, we can continue the conversation. If you have additional questions after this day. Thank you. Brilliant. Thank you for your presentation. And if anyone wants to read any more about the research that Elizabeth has been doing. I'm sure we can provide a link for that in the chat. And as a reminder, please send in all your questions using the Q&A function. And I'd like to move on to our next panellists. So up an ultimate panelist is Professor Tillman Brooke, who will be discussing the long term challenges to food security and the importance of institutions to help achieve food security. And only as Professor Tillman and Professor of Food Security, State Pagality and Climate Change at the Natural Resources Institute of University of Greenwich, but it's also the founder and director of International Security and Development Center. And Professor Tillman. Thank you very much Helen and thank you for organizing this wonderful session and the interesting conference. It's a pleasure to be here and I was torn between what to present because I really care deeply about the topic of this panel and I work on that and I do a lot of research very similar to what Elizabeth presented and that sort of where my heart is I try to understand how people respond to crisis and conflict and what their behavior is and what their welfare is including in food choices and nutrition and food security and so. These are really important topics I do work a lot in the global south and I normally I travel a lot but but then I thought maybe this was a good occasion to zoom out a bit and I'm actually involved also in some projects which increasingly look at some of the more, if I can say universal or common elements in the food system which are relevant so in that sense perhaps a bit closer to what some of the things that Ruth was talking about. And so, I thought I want to present some scenarios and, and to think ahead a bit and to think through what might happen in say 50 years time and so doesn't case you get worried you know it's not going to be sci fi right I'm not going to fly to outer galaxies with you I'm not going to completely loony yet. I'm getting there but not yet so I want to still stay scientific and still think through what might be in the future and and to allow some new thinking perhaps and to be a little bit more creative. I said I love surveys and I love data but sometimes it really forces us to be very specific on that particular context I'm not going to do a prediction but I'm going to go what if. So what if circumstances change and what could happen then so like a couple of thought experiments and I'm maybe three or four thought experiments and the first one. I would call no land, and that's essentially the realization that most of agriculture, I mean, wherever you are. It's a sort of model I mean of course in the context where it was better digital research and Marley you know people don't have these big tractors. But basically you work the land and you work it in two dimensions from right to left and front to back yeah and, and you grow your crops or you grow or you grow your cattle on it or your animals yeah and so. So the productivity and the food and the crops and so on they come from land, but what if you took land out of agriculture what would be left of that yeah and that's could be anywhere it could be in, in the global north it could be in the global south and there's many reasons why you should think that in the future land may not be so available for example think through Chernobyl the, I remember Chernobyl the nuclear disaster which made some soils, temporarily or long term, unusable. There's a reason pollution basically I could spoil land, and it could be animal pests so where I live near Berlin there, they are. There's some disease which affects the wild boar and so the farmers are not allowed to crop the fields where the, where the wild boars roam freely and the crops are contaminated with these diseases. There could be another one, or it could be urbanization, you know I mean massive forms of urbanization where maybe the transport and travel costs are so high that you have to grow crops locally and you cannot import anymore you know if you think of the future mega city so so let's just remember you know land may not be available in any more in the future, but the other thing that may not be available in the future is globalization and trade and food from really far away so you know, in buying bananas in the UK is of course a luxury because they're not typically grown in the UK and it would be crazy to grow them in the UK, because it costs too much energy so I have this, I have this customs officer here yeah and he says no way yeah like don't continue and, and you might say, no, that's, that's not likely we're such a globalized world and everybody eats bananas, or well many people like it in bananas at least in the UK. But as we saw with Trump suddenly trade barriers went up. Yeah, it wasn't and there are other leaders like that who believe in nationalism and to who don't believe in globalization and whether that's in Brazil or in India or Russia. In the world they are political leaders who put a barrier on trade and I don't even have to talk about Brexit so that's a reason or with Suez canal remember that big boat that got stuck. I'm afraid I didn't find a proper for big boat yeah but the big boat that got stuck in the Suez canal and inhabited inhibited world trade for quite a significant while and it was just one boat getting stuck in one place. So our trading system is very vulnerable and if we don't trade anymore we can't buy those bananas or those grapes from you know South Africa and and our food changes and even food for very poor people will change because it changes the markets and it changes the prices and it changes the integration all our food systems are highly global even if you even if you eat your own local food you're still competing with with global food food aid is a form of globalized food trade actually except the terms of trades are awful and it of course has the risk of could potentially destroy markets. There's a third scenario I want to go through and of course that's on everybody's minds the no climate scenario yeah what if it gets really really hot yeah really really hot or what if it gets the weather gets so variable that it becomes really difficult to use that tractor I showed you earlier yeah and then of course heat shocks we know that heat changes the way we behave yeah if it gets really extreme in the heat shock yeah this is this is your best bet yeah but if even if the heat is marginal and our decisions are clouded we eat differently the food we eat changes you know we want ice cream we want coca-cola or you know hopefully just drink lots of water but hopefully clean yeah so hopefully you have the water you can bring to maintain the hopefully can boil the water or otherwise purify it if you if you don't have tap water yeah so getting clean drinking drinking water in a hot climate is critical and so these are not just problems in the north where maybe we're not used to hot weather these are challenges that we face everywhere and it changes our food consumption and it changes our behavior and it changes our our judgments and I do experiments on that I put people in the greenhouse and I heat the greenhouse all the way and I see how their behaviors change their food behaviors but also their group behaviors we have a lot of people who interact with each other in groups that we know from other academic research that people who are exposed to high temperatures are more likely to engage in violent conflict so so we even have different scenarios than interact where we have with climate change we're more likely to have conflicts with conflicts we're more likely to have less trade with conflict we're more likely to have less land because maybe it's mind that's another reason why you might have no no land and so we have interaction effects between these different large scale scenarios and and they're significant these interaction effects and they they impact on people at many different levels they impact on on individuals through their life course there's research which shows that if your childhood development is impacted your later life you're less productive and maybe even the children of children whose early life course was negatively impacted by external shocks will be impacted so that you can even pass this on intergenerately it's within families and different people within a family of different jobs maybe men and women and it will be different differential impact within families and inequalities within families, it will be within countries where the different regions different social groups different socio economic groups different ethnic groups different, you know, well as urban versus rural for example, and of different ethnic groups between countries and so these shocks and crises and influences the system changes they they impact on on how we relate to each other they impact on how our food is produced and and also how our food is consumed, but it's not just a production we need, you know, a lot more sort of genetic engineering or anything like that. I think the important thing is it's a societal issue and it's how how societies have configured and it's how institutions have configured. And it's how we, our groups in our in our societies deal with each other and interestingly you. You're increasingly seeing that food, for example, becomes an identity issue. Yeah, and so you have people who maybe like their red meat and who define themselves through that and a good Barbie on the weekend. You mean something to them and then you have other people who are very proud vegans. Yeah, and who define themselves to that to group identity being vegan is one of the simplest way of changing your group identity. So changing your gender and ethnicity is much more difficult. Yeah, and so you have an intergroup conflicts potentially in the society we see that in today's fracture societies yeah and I only again need to say, Putin and Trump and Bolsonaro yeah and we see how different identity politics are being played off against each other and I think food and food systems are at the heart of that. And we're basically going to be used right to define identities and what we eat and how we eat is critical in the future for our society. And I think it's already critical today and whether it's a place where people are very hungry and where survival is acutely endangered, or it's a place where people are lucky to be on average be incredibly well off and I think in both places in anywhere in the world, who would really matter that it always mattered but it will continue to matter, and will continue to shape our societies and and both reflect our inequalities but also further our inequalities. So maybe not an altogether positive outlook but that's my my take on the subject thank you very much for your attention. Thank you Tillman is really good to zoom out and have that look about how the future of food not in the global south of the global north but the ideas that prevail and influence both. Thank you for your presentation and our final speaker of the panel needs no introduction. Professor Alex Devall is a executive director of the World Peace Foundation, a research professor at Fletcher School of Global Affairs Tufts University, a professor professorial director at London School of Economics, and has authored numerous books, including The History of Future of Famine in 2017. And Professor Alex will be speaking about the concept of starvation as a weapon of war, using the ongoing famine integrate Ethiopia as a case study. Professor Alex. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be with you though it's a very dismal topic to talk about. So, when I published my book in fact when I started writing that book mass starvation, some five years ago. It's pretty optimistic that the era of great famines in the world was over. I made the case that over the hundred years from approximately the the height of European imperialism in the 1870s until the 1970s about 10 million people around the world. The world had perished in great and calamitous famines, that's famines that kill 100,000 or more people. And that these numbers that actually dwindled remarkably we haven't seen famines on that scale. We have more than 40 years. The, the, the, the most terrible famines of our generation in North Korea and Ethiopia in Somalia were actually on a first of all on a smaller scale. Yes, they killed several hundred thousand people each but they went these calamitous famines that we've had before. They were becoming rarer and our response to them was becoming more effective. There was some warning signs as the book went to press that all was not well, there was some disturbing signs of famine being back the so called for famines and of 2017 in Somalia in northeast Nigeria and South Sudan and in Yemen, and also starvation in associated with sieges in Syria. In all cases what was key to the the the resurgence of starvation was a combination of armed conflict, the decay, the dismantling of state institutions, and in some cases the deliberate use of hunger as a weapon of war. And there was, I was happy to see a resurgence of international concern around this there was a UN Security Council resolution 2417 on armed conflict and hunger that was passed just over three years ago. That requires the UN Secretary General to alert the Security Council. There's a case in which armed conflict is threatening widespread food insecurity, and it brings some tools to that. It says those who are obstructing humanitarian assistance may be subjected to to sanction it by bringing it to the Security Council. It also alerts the Security Council the world that hunger and armed conflict are an issue of international peace and security. There was also an amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court differ on on the the crime of starvation during war which had been prohibited for international armed conflicts and with and the extension and the prohibition was now extended to civil wars in non international armed conflicts. And the the crime of starvation in international or the definition is very important. It is the destruction, or the rendering useless or the removal of objects, indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. So that can be food, it can be water supplies, it can be medicine or it can be maternal care for for children, anything that is indispensable to survival. So starvation is is a slightly broader concept in law than it is in in in everyday use. Now sadly what we're seeing is that atrocity famines are are back and are resurgent around the world there are cases from from Congo to Myanmar to Nigeria is again back. Famine has not gone away, but the worst case, the most egregious case is the current famine in to grow. And what we have seen just yesterday actually there was a remarkable round table in advance of the G7 summit, in which the UN Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock said this is famine, there is famine now. In the month of power, the administrator of USA ID, you know, said very clearly this is famine caused by hunger being used as an as a weapon of war. The US Special Envoy said at the end, Special Envoy for the Horn reports to President Biden said we should not have to count the graves of the children who have died before we declare this a famine. The European Union was very prominent that the UK I'm afraid is having once been a Vanguard at the lead of humanitarian action and and so on has slipped to the back of the queue somewhat with the reasons we all know and don't need to go into. So this is a man made famine that we have in in in Tigra. There is really no natural element here. There is a background of poverty but seven months ago, you know that the area was was was defined as essentially food secure. Ethiopia had itself over the last 30 years demonstrated that despite the challenges of drought, climatic adversities, etc, etc, it could run enormously effective relief programs and implement in hugely ambitious and efficacious domestic welfare programs that went meant that there was a harvest failure. Rural people did not descend into poverty they did not have to sell their assets they could keep their children in school they could keep their livestock they could keep their seeds. And so Ethiopia was as it were emblematic of the fact that famine could be conquered, just as Ethiopia is now emblematic of why it is returning and it is returning because not only is hunger being used as a weapon of war it is also being used as a extermination. And then we come back to that particular point man made. There are three key elements to what is driving the famine here, three key and then and then some ancillary ones. One is pillage, the systematic dismantling of an economy. This is not looting just by soldiers out of control this is looting designed by the coalition partners in this war, the government of Ethiopia, the government of Eritrea systematically dismantling industries, universities, ethnic cleansing of the grants from the most fertile areas of their province. There is destruction of objects indispensable to survival, burning of food, vandalizing and ransacking health clinics ripping up and destroying water supplies many of them paid for by international donors the UK's Department for International Development essentially provided the funds for the the urban water supply in Macaulay that has all been stolen. And I wonder what our government in the UK is going to do the fact that UK taxpayers money was used to build essential infrastructure which has now been stolen by the very government that is our quotes development partner there. And then there's another element there I mentioned maternal care. There is, it is now very well documented widespread and systematic rape. And there are some very very disturbing videos of the Ethiopian Prime Minister, making jokes about this. Essentially trivializing and encouraging his soldiers to commit sexual violence because he says that essentially doesn't matter haha. So when there are you know that the Ethiopian attorney general has gained a bit of praise for prosecuting 20 odd individual soldiers the prosecutions should not stop at those individual soldiers we all know that when there is widespread and systematic in war it is not because soldiers are feeling frustrated it is because they are told to do that by their superiors, and they are given license by that political leaders, and we see a man who I'm afraid was a Nobel Prize winner. And that makes you very very clearly encouraging mass rape now this is relevant because rape is a crime widespread and systematic rape is a crime against humanity but rape is also a starvation crime, because a female survivor of rape, often cannot care for herself, let alone care for her children. Many abandoned, unaccompanied children, tens of thousands of children, many of those children are abandoned because their mothers were taken away and gang raped help held in sexual slavery, and then have somehow made it to a hospital, but they are separated from their children, imagine the torment of these of these women. And we all know in these situations that are, you know, children who do not have that maternal care who are who are left on that to basically defend for themselves or on the charity of their neighbors, how desperately vulnerable they will be. The famine is already sufficiently advanced that we know tens of thousands of children will die, and it is these children who, sadly, are the most vulnerable. The report that came out yesterday from the integrated food security phase classification, conservatively estimated that 350,000 people are in famine conditions and that nearly 2 million more are approaching that stage. Their assumption, their prediction going forward is premised on the assumption that there will be an aid operation. But the fact is that the aid operation is fairly meager. It is being presented as being much more than it is because a lot of the food that is reported to have been distributed has been signed for, but then has been looted. So the numbers of quotes recipients are exaggerated. And the, the, there are 131 access violations that were reported in the last month, 130 of those by the Ethiopian and Eritrean coalition forces just one by that, by another unidentified armed group the resistance. And this is a, there's a campaign to choke off humanitarian assistance to to to Tigray so that the a an unfolding of famine that will kill perhaps a couple of 100,000 people by people I mean overwhelmingly children over the next six months is actually an optimistic scenario it could be much worse than that the great famines are back. Now a couple of final points on this. One is that the, the, the, the, the cause of this internationally is the breakdown of the multilateral system that they're the mechanisms for warning and preventing this happening or all working. A few years ago, they were dismantled, they were set on one side, it was given the, those who engage in the sort of transactional brutal politics of the Middle East were given the license to do what they wanted by the Trump administration and by the decline in the clout of the United Nations and especially the African Union which has essentially disappeared from the scene in the last few years. And what we see at the moment we saw, and we see over the will see it very clearly over the next week is an attempt by the Biden administration of the European Union to reconstruct some of that multilateral at the G7, and they're going to push it once again at the UN Security Council. This major conflict that in the words of the US Special Envoy Jeffrey Feldman is going to make Syria look like a picnic has unfolded for seven months without the UN Security Council once taking this issue in a public session or passing any sort of resolution on that. And once again it is going to be pushed back to the UN Security Council by the US and the EU, and we shall see if it works. And we shall see if those fundamental ethical standards that have sustained the reduction in the numbers and, and, and horror of those families, whether that is going to work. And then that my very final point is, is a point about hunger creating conflict. And there is no doubt that starvation crimes inflicted in this way will generate a level of bitterness and anger among the population affected, such that that they will be motivated to fight, and to to to to resist and we know from, you know, must famine crimes from Ireland to Ukraine, that these stay on in the collective memory for generations, breeding anger resentment, and forms of virulent nationalism so it is desperately important that this major famine crime be acted on as as as immediately and as quick and as effectively as as we possibly can. Thank you. Thank you Alex for your presentation you've taken quite a sensitive topic and you introduced it in a way that will help people understand it. Before we move on to question and answers. Can I just ask for the people who are not familiar with your work, can you just maybe explain a little bit about the warning signs of famines that you mentioned at the start of your presentation. The sort of conventional warning signs and systems are based upon on a quite a complex assessment of nutritional rates of food economies and so on and so on. The most sophisticated one is the integrated phase food security phase classification system, which is used by the US famine early warning system and others and you can go on to that website and you will see different colors ranging from green being food insecure through to red being emergency. These don't work terribly well when there is conflict, but we know enough about conflict to be able to project forward it just becomes politically controversial to do so. And so what we have in a case like Ethiopia at the moment is a government that will be twisting the arms of humanitarian agencies saying don't you dare declare famine. And we will find all sorts of circumstances and methodological problems with this sophisticated systems of, of identifying famine. For example, by saying that the thresholds have not been reached by enough people in one particular place to declare famine that it doesn't really count. But frankly, anything that kills, you know, 300,000 children through through mass starvation in my book is a family. And those who deny it are complicit in that in that denial. And what we've seen in Ethiopia is in the last six months is enough evidence of those starvation crimes to know the direction in which we're heading. It is not rocket science to know that if you have a population that is dependent upon certain forms of income livelihood and food and you remove those then of course they're okay to stop. Brilliant thank you. I definitely think you're right there and there is that twisted concept that someone cannot die from hunger unless famine has been has been classed by the government. And a lot of governments try try not to pass it because it, it puts them in the wrong and it's their actions that have then caused them. And so I'm going to open up the panel to a discussion now question and answer, and I'm going to be a bit self centered and ask a question that I want to ask first. And it's as food aid has been created to be supplied in the short term instances. And when considering the increased number of complex emergencies and protracted conflicts, how has food aid adapted to longer term support and has this created any challenges. Would anyone like to jump in first. Should I should I nominate. Professor Tillman, how about you start. Sorry, I was going to ask whether Alex starts because apparently is to leave soon right so you want to. Of course, and I'll type into the chat. Apologies, I was just actually answering another question that came up in the chat which is. How where does accountability lie has famine as a tool of war ever been pursued as a war crime. And let me just first answer that and, and, and, and there is a chance that Sudanese President Bashir may be prosecuted under the at the International Criminal Court for starvation crimes committed in Darfur it's not sure whether that will actually happen. And there is certainly if they're where to be an appetite for, for, for a, a, a, international prosecutions. There's no doubt that especially Eritrean President is asked for key would be in the sights for that. It may be a little more difficult to go after happy Ahmed but a number of his generals would certainly be be extremely exposed to to to to that. And then on on on food aid. And one of the tragedies about Ethiopia is, is that it was at the forefront of moving away from this sort of conventional you know humanitarian emergency response towards what they call the productive safety net program, and indeed towards what Ruth was was describing as the dull disasters approach of drought insurance and so on these up to date, financial systems. And now we're back into the, the, the bad old days of emergency feeding and food aid being manipulated for for political and military reasons. And it is. And I, what I fear we will see unfolding in Tigray is a sort of protracted emergency in which the, the economy has been reduced to such a level that you know several million people are for a long time dependent upon an international food aid pipeline. And the, the key belligerence can turn that on and off at will in order to keep that population and subjugated it's it's a truly appalling situation. Maybe if I may to build on that on your question Helen, I think it's important to bear in mind that depending on the setting and you know maybe Tigray is this one particular setting where, as Alex rightly says you know the government and the actors can switch this on and off sadly. But there are people who are hungry in other settings for other reasons. And food aid is sort of, you know, giving somebody something to eat. I guess you could go back to the biblical image you know sort of giving somebody fish is nice but giving them a fishing rod is better. Yeah. And so this differentiation between food aid and the humanitarian sector and emergency help on the one hand, and the larger issue of development and livelihoods and having enough income to sustain yourself your family, etc. There's another issue at face value but we have to think them in a joint way and you may, or if we also think about like say social security systems in Western Europe. You know some people have good income and a good job they lose their job, maybe they can't pay the mortgage they might lose their house they might even come homeless. And in a in a welfare state you know that the government would then step in and provide you maybe unemployment benefit or social security payments to see you through that rough patch and then maybe you can keep your house yeah and you get another job three or six months later and then you have decent income again and then you can stay where you are and you have enough food at all times. And so individuals fall into poverty, you know, for example, single moms are often very food insecure, both in northern and in southern countries. So how can we make sure that this sort of life cycle poverty, or after losing a job, or, or because weather fails, you know rain fails, and how can we ensure against that as part of a larger system of ensuring people against life threatening risks. And so I think we need to think through social protection and welfare systems and state capacity and, and other forms of entitlements, you know, like a sense of view of entitlement is not just about food aid or money, you know, maybe social networks but a family can help you if you are short on something income or food or whatever. Yeah. And so how can we strengthen that how can we not lose the social networks that can also be quite effective in helping people and family networks kinship networks you know they can act as insurance mechanisms basically if the state is unable to take that place yeah so taking a more holistic you mean to move out of this food aid emergency mode W. Yeah. Ruth you would you like to join in. Yes, listen. Yes, I think your question is really a good, difficult one. But I've seen several examples of very successful change from especially civil society organization being active in activities and then being forced to change. And to really been able to to support livelihoods new ways for people to live lives. In particular, I've been working with and Joey down that I thought was crazy when they wanted to dig wells in the middle of the desert. And had these processes so return where I would call have a lead invited back and it was a success I think course they had very strong local institutions and and the people themselves. They were responsible for for everything basically. And, and then it works very well. So I think we can find several successes but of course we cannot support a lot of failures. And my point is that we, we don't really give enough priority to recovery to process the return to how that can happen because I mean there are so many forgotten crisis and so many suffering. So I do find that when we're thinking of food aid, we're thinking that it's just the parcel of food that's being given over, which would then sustain them in that in that period, rather than the new idea of food system resilience that the World Food Program is now pioneering and which was the idea that allowed them to get the peace prize. What do you think of that? Well, I, I still think the World Food Program is is basically doing the food relief in in the direct transfer either in kind or more and more in cash to be able to operationalize new ways and say, especially with this enormous crisis now, I, I haven't really seen how it has exceeded maybe others in the panel have, but I find it difficult to really say if, if, if that's for the, the, the series, the rhetoric or if it's really happening in. Brilliant. I think we're going to move on to a question from the audience aimed at Elisabetta in Mali, as well as the other Sahel countries, aid workers are very much targeted by armed groups. If starvation is such a cruel and painful aspect of war, how can armed groups hope to get better gain control over a region and build legitimacy justifying barriers between people and food aid. I think this is quite a large question. Do you think you'd be able to answer it? Sorry, I'm reading it again. So, if I understand correctly is about the targeting, how, how food aid can can reach populations in general know I think is a is a broader question is not just about Mali or Sahel but it's really about the operationalization of aid. I mean, I can speak a little bit about the, the results we found and as I, as I mentioned during the presentation, we actually find that households that were more affected by the conflict were least reached by aid so that's kind of gives an idea of how probably things go on the ground. And I guess this is probably because it's very difficult to reach conflict affected areas because of the problems with the roads or even the same rebel group that were operating in Mali were opposed to aid reaching these populations. And so, so yeah, I don't either really know if I answered the question, but yeah, but if I can add something on what it was the previous question, I would like to also emphasize that you don't know what Tim was mentioning and also Ruth, that when we think about humanitarian emergencies, we always think of something that is short. No, we always think about something that is fast paced and the sector needs to get there and maybe operating and then after six months or one year they wrap up and they go home and this is actually reflecting on the way the humanitarian section operates also in terms of contracts or also the fact they don't embed evaluation systems in their operations because they think it should go so fast. But then if you look at the data, the biggest recipient of humanitarian aid in 2018 were all long term recipients. So we are thinking about context or countries that have been receiving humanitarian emergency aid for more than eight years. Okay, so I guess we should also reframe the question are we still talking about humanitarian emergencies, or are we talking about something else. And I guess in this case then the answer will change because as Tim and Ruth mentioned, we shouldn't think about addressing needs with your food aid basket or box, but really thinking about building back these economies. And obviously, I mean, this is maybe my bias because most of my research is on children but really protecting these children and really investing them or in their mothers as was highlighted by Alex presentation, I think it's key part of the recovery so it's not just building the capital. So infrastructure obviously this is a big part, but also thinking about the people that are experienced these shocks that will have consequences that go much beyond the emergency itself. I think you've hit the mark there. I think there needs to be that perspective change where food aid or assistance is not classed as post conflict relief, but then it's more going in towards the state building and the resilience building after conflict and I think that's a great idea that probably needs more research on and as a I think a final question if oh no we've got a couple more and post to everyone from Emma. Can individuals do anything to combat food insecurity, or does change have to come from a national or international policy level. That's a great question. One dollar question. Is the individual responsible for what happens to the world. Yeah, maybe one billion. Yeah. But then, if that question comes from somebody who lives and studies in London. I think the share of your responsibility is a lot more than one, one, one, sorry, eighth of a billion whatever you say that you have such a small number but you know is larger than you share in the global world population because Chancellor for example your carbon account is much larger. Yeah, then than that of many people in many other countries, you are your food choices are just in dollar terms worth more. So of course we all, you know it makes a difference what we do, yeah how we live and what we eat makes a difference I think now. I don't think she'd feel guilty about every single I don't know, you know, he's a salami that you put in your mouth but, but how that your food is sourced and where it comes from and whether you eat blueberries and January in London which are farmed in a way, don't want the farmer in Chile to be unemployed but you know is that really the best way of using your, your very limited carbon account that you have yeah, where do you go on holiday but you buy bottled mineral water from from southern France even if you live in London and the tap water is actually quite decent you know. So I think these are real choices you can make which which have an impact whether they impact people in the Sahel zone in the short term I don't know. But it's all it's all connected I think that's what I was trying to say earlier. Yeah. So I think it does make a difference how we how we feed ourselves and how we live. Ruth your hand is still raised. Would you like to join in. I also think it's an excellent question what individuals do. In my view, individuals can really take part in so many kinds of solidarity action works like the organization use organizations. And, and I think that kind of solidarity work where you're so part of kind of racing awareness discussing changing attitude, getting people to understand better what's happening in the world when it comes to hunger and famine. So that kind of organizations. I think it's extremely, they do very, very good work and join those. I think can make a difference. It's this saying that everybody to us can save the world but we can't do it alone. We have to do it together with other people. I also think there is this kind of now direct support platforms. I was very surprised when my, when a colleague of mine at work said he was supporting for women entrepreneurs in the Philippines by this kind of direct platform support so that's another way. I think it's interesting to be really gaining popularity that, that, that you can have this direct way so helping other people I haven't seen much over the age know how what degree that is really contributing towards change saving the world from hunger and famine but I think there are new ways coming and it's interesting to say that you can really must work people much more when when they feel kind of that I read things. So, I am optimistic that the individuals and then you can always can do quite well. Thank you. My questions just come in that I think recently you'd probably like to weigh in on it's about seeds and plants as food aid rather than just the parcel of food, but the capability for farmers then to create seeds. And would you like to expand on that. This is something I've been working on so so thank you for that question. I've been working in countries in Africa like Malawi and they are well they have been serious hunger, especially Malawi and the evaluations and results we've seen from what's called doctor packet. I think have been really, really good and much more local than to buy it really and also the dignity for people. Instead of queuing up in lines to receive food really I mean they are able to put themselves everybody would like that and get the kind of clarity that comes with the relief so Doctor packet this with fertilizer and have a very good impact on those who of course have land and but if you are displaced they don't land it's difficult in Uganda in fact place people are getting land again the refugees also from neighboring countries and they are given land you get this what you call the displacement economics and the displaced people are able to grow their own and it creates a lot of duties in the local community so there are very many ways you can help and I think if in kind food relief is not very popular anymore it's more cash based or it's in other ways like the starter packages but US is of course still providing a lot of income food relief what they usually do is that they give food for free for American NGOs and then the American NGOs will take it to for example Africa they sell it very low cost local people and use the income to fund their NGO activities and this of course has been heavily criticized because the market for local farmers are then disappearing so this is also one reason why there is this is a very big buy for cash and not the kind that comes with it. Thank you. And we've just had another question come in I think it's probably directed towards Professor Alex, but I'll just read it aloud just in case anyone else wants to weigh in and it's about a scorching food aid using the military when the need arises in Tigray if it cannot be answered. I know me I'm a conscientious object so I never served so I'm not an expert on driving army trucks but one thing that strikes me is when you come to the point where you have to save lives you know using army trucks then something has gone terribly wrong a long time ago yeah so I'm not saying it's not worth it it should probably be done if that's a possibility but I think that there was this earlier question about the aid workers it's similar so how do you stop people from attacking what you need is you need strong and equitable institutions which care about people and if you have that then you'll never need an army truck either to protect the aid or humanitarian workers or to deliver the food aid and so I think we mustn't lose sight of what we are aiming for and what the system should be now there are institutions in the north which are very weak and vulnerable and people fall through the cracks and not everybody's been in their care for it properly but of course they even more cracks in the system in the global south and so there's a millions and hundreds of millions of people who are not getting the help they showed the schooling for their children is poor you know the roads are weak the extension services are weak etc yeah it's possible to improve these things and we basically know how to do it it's more question of inequalities in the political system which and the persistence of weak forms of governance which which keep it like that yeah it's not a technocratic lack of knowledge on how to help people how to make it work and it's not even a lack of money as such yeah the world has never been as rich as it has been now in the aggregate or per capita we have the resources we have to know how it's sort of the politics that's the missing and the institutions yeah so that would be my view on on this and hopefully trying to tie it a little bit together as well thank you. Brilliant thank you I think we have to wrap up now, but I would like to thank all of our speakers here today. We've had some brilliant presentations and we've answered quite a few questions, and I'd like to thank all the audience for coming as well on next.