World Food Program

The Rough Road to Gender Equality; a Major Message on Hunger; No Saudis on the Human Rights Council

October 17, 2020

For once, two pieces of good news from the United Nations: The World Food Program receives the Nobel Peace Prize and the Security Council begins meeting physically again in its chamber. But some reality-checking: 25 years after the Beijing conference on women, the road to gender equality is still being dug. Greetings from This Week …

Africa, Health and Population, Human Rights, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, This Week @UN, US Foreign Relations

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The UN’s 12th Nobel Peace Prize: Our Latest Podcast Episode

October 16, 2020

by Stéphanie Fillion and Kacie Candela

Clair MacDougall was reporting on a follow-up story for PassBlue about Lieut. Col. Carlos Moisés Guillén Alfaro, the first official United Nations peacekeeper to die of Covid-19, when on Oct. 9 she heard that the World Food Program was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and that its executive director, David Beasley, was in town, so she …

Africa, Development, Humanitarian Aid, US-UN Relations

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As the Nobel Peace Prize Is Awarded to the World Food Program, Famines Loom

October 10, 2020

by Clair MacDougall

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — David Beasley, the head of the World Food Program, this year’s just-announced Nobel Peace Prize winner, has warned that the number of people facing starvation could double next year, to 270 million, if the agency is unable to raise enough money to cope with the crisis. “2021 is going to be …

Humanitarian Aid, UN Agencies, US-UN Relations

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COVID-19

Never Underestimate the Grit of Malawians to Survive the Coronavirus

May 25, 2020

by Antonio Menendez de Zubillaga

LILONGWE, Malawi — Ever since an expatriate tourism adviser labeled Malawi the “warm heart of Africa” in the 1970s, Malawians have worn the title proudly, sparing no effort to welcome visitors with open arms. My family and I felt immediately at home here in Lilongwe, the capital. We arrived in April 2018, as part …

Africa, Covid-19

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‘Cowboys’ May Be Running the World Food Program, but Donations Keep Coming

October 27, 2019

by Dulcie Leimbach

The World Food Program may be receiving millions of more donations from the Trump administration than under past presidencies, but its management is skidding around amid complaints of sexual harassment, retaliation, abuse of authority and, most startling, rape, according to a new external survey. Under the leadership of David Beasley, a former South Carolina …

UN Agencies, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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NIKKI HALEY WATCH

The UN World Food Program Boss, Mixing Work With Religion?

January 31, 2018

by Dulcie Leimbach

David Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Program, based in Rome, posted a prayer at the top of his Twitter page in early January, reading: “My prayer for 2018: Peace. Our path to Zero Hunger begins with peace.” The page, @dbeasley1, is a hybrid of personal tweets and professional news about his …

Humanitarian Aid, Nikki Haley Watch, UN Agencies, US-UN Relations

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Financing the UN: Payers, Pipers and Tunes

December 7, 2017

by Stephen Browne and Thomas G. Weiss

GENEVA — Change is in the air again on First Avenue. Among numerous reform options being bandied about, none will be more consequential than those on financing the United Nations system. There are the sledgehammer arguments: drastic slashes in funding by Washington and other donors could precipitate dramatic change. As we have argued in …

UN Agencies, World Bank

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TAKE A LOOK

America’s Financial Support to the UN: What’s at Stake?

April 4, 2017

by Barbara Crossette

With White House proposals to slash United States assessments and donations to international organizations now in play in the writing of a federal budget for 2018 — as an April 28 deadline approaches — the extent of potential losses to the United Nations is coming into sharp focus. The US, for example, has immediately …

Take a Look, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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WORLDVIEWS

Message to Trump: The US Needs the UN and Vice Versa

December 17, 2016

by Donald T. Bliss

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Strong American leadership at the United Nations would greatly enhance President-elect Trump’s foreign policy agenda. United States investment in the UN is an effective use of taxpayer dollars to serve the US military, diplomatic, economic and national security interests. UN peacekeepers, for example, cost one-eighth the expenses of US boots on …

Development, Peace and Security, Security Council, Sustainable Development Goals, UN Agencies, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS

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WORLDVIEWS

How Trauma Therapy Can Help to Reduce Cycles of Violence

April 26, 2016

by Rolf C. Carriere

ÉCHENEVEX, France — While psychological trauma affects perhaps as many as 500 million victims worldwide, and adversely impacts human and social development on a massive scale, its most devastating — but least suspected — effect may well be the potential for peace. How? Because people who have been traumatized by violence or abuse could …

WORLDVIEWS

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Vijay Nambiar, UN Envoy, Untangles the Problems Plaguing Myanmar

May 19, 2014

by Barbara Crossette

The surprising move in 2010 by a repressive Burmese military regime to begin ceding power to the nation’s people was just the beginning of a tangled story. The new democracy held its first credible election less than two years later — an election that catapulted Aung San Suu Kyi, barely 18 months free of …

Asia, Development, Myanmar

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WORLDVIEWS

Far-Reaching Changes Remake the UN Food and Agriculture Organization

May 13, 2013

by Helmut Volger

BERLIN — The fight against hunger became a primary goal of the United Nations system early on. In 1943, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt convened an international conference that reached agreement on the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization, and two years later, on Oct. 16, 1945, only days before the …

Humanitarian Aid, UN Agencies, World Bank

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BOOKS

Reasons to Love and Criticize the UN

November 4, 2012

by A. Edward Elmendorf

In his new book, “Living With the UN: American Responsibilities and International Order,” Kenneth Anderson forces readers who lean sympathetically toward the United Nations to consider why they support it despite its faults. On the other hand, the acerbic views of Anderson, a law professor at American University, about the UN are deeply colored by …

BOOKS, US-UN Relations

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The Hunger Lines Just Keep Growing in the Sahel

October 5, 2012

by Tanya Bindra

GUIDAN ROUMDJI, Niger — Her food reserves have almost run out, but Tini Kane, 50 years old and widowed three times, must feed all 23 members of her family. Like many other Nigerien farmers, she sold her precious goats to cope with the bad harvests of this year and last, even though she still …

Africa, Humanitarian Aid

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MILLENNIUM GOALS

Nagging Hunger Undermines Millennium Poverty Goal

May 2, 2012

by Barbara Crossette

The first of the eight Millennium Development Goals makes an ambitious demand: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger worldwide. It is now widely accepted that progress has been made in many countries on cutting the percentage of people living with less than the rock-bottom $1.25 a day. But decreasing hunger by half is another sadder …

Development, Human Rights

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World Food Program

The Rough Road to Gender Equality; a Major Message on Hunger; No Saudis on the Human Rights Council

The UN’s 12th Nobel Peace Prize: Our Latest Podcast Episode

As the Nobel Peace Prize Is Awarded to the World Food Program, Famines Loom

Never Underestimate the Grit of Malawians to Survive the Coronavirus

‘Cowboys’ May Be Running the World Food Program, but Donations Keep Coming

The UN World Food Program Boss, Mixing Work With Religion?

Financing the UN: Payers, Pipers and Tunes

America’s Financial Support to the UN: What’s at Stake?

Message to Trump: The US Needs the UN and Vice Versa

How Trauma Therapy Can Help to Reduce Cycles of Violence

Vijay Nambiar, UN Envoy, Untangles the Problems Plaguing Myanmar

Far-Reaching Changes Remake the UN Food and Agriculture Organization

Reasons to Love and Criticize the UN

The Hunger Lines Just Keep Growing in the Sahel

Nagging Hunger Undermines Millennium Poverty Goal

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