Signs of Hope in Senegal

The picture in this post was taken back in 2008, when traveling around Dogon country in central plateau region of Mali. The mud hut, called Maison des Regles, is used to house women when they are menstruating.

Gender roles are very rigid in Dogon Country, with men preventing women from participating in communal meetings or taking any leadership or decision-making roles in the affairs of their communities. But perhaps the most striking thing I learn while traveling around this region is that most villages practice female genital mutilation. 

This is why initiatives like the one below reported by the NY Times are worth spreading, hoping for a much faster paste in the elimination of this inexcusable practice:

Food Security in Colombian Indigenous Communities

Although I usually question the scalability of concepts such as food sovereignty or food autonomy, it's feasible to make exceptions when dealing with indigenous population in which cultural values play a central role in their life. This video, produced by IPS, shows how indigenous communities of the Colombian Andean regions are ensuring food security by diversifying the crops they grow.

Food security in Colombia from IPS Inter Press Service on Vimeo.

Grains and Leaves: Weekly Ag-Related News, Events, and Others

Here is this week's edition of Grains and Leaves;

• Mark your calendars: 2011 Borlaug Dialogue. The Next Generation: Confronting the Hunger Challenges of Tomorrow: October 12-14, 2011 – Des Moines, Iowa
• Andris Piebalgs, EU's Commissioner for Development, outlines challenges and EU's policy to achieve food security for all
• Danielle Nierenberg, of Huffington Post, on World Food Prize Recognizes Leadership in Agriculture, but More Policy Support Is Needed to Feed the World's Hungry 
• The debate on bio-fuels and its potential development role for the African continent continues: Green Oil in Africa: Development Opportunity or Threat to Food Security? A story from the New America Media
• FAO publishes its annual The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2011, saying that food price volatility continues to present enormous challenges to poor countries and consumers that spend most of their money on food. (Link added to Relevant Report section of the blog)
• Another FAO report, Crop Prospects and Food Situation, predicts that world cereal prices will continue to remain high despite above-average harvest. NYTime's Green Blog discusses the report
• Robert S. Zeigler, IRRI's Director General, talks about how half of the 7 billion individuals will continue to depend on rice for its staple food.
• The Guardian: Global Coalition Teams Up for Ground Breaking African Famine Solution

Columbia's MPA in Development Practice

Check this short video about Columbia's MPA in Development Practice. I'm currently enrolled and I love it. Email if you have any questions about it. Also, here is a brochure that describes the program's main components.

                      

Columbia University - Masters in Public Administration - Development Practice from Field Studio on Vimeo.

Development Studies Books

Below is a good list of must reads for students interested in development studies. The list was compiled by The Guardian which also has other resources for students interested in development:

• Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

• Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty

• Jagdish Bhagwati, In Defence of Globalisation

• Ester Boserup, Woman's Role in Economic Development

• Deborah Brautigam, The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa

• Ha-Joon Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective

• Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

• William Easterly, The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts To Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good

• Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World

• Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation

• Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor

• James Ferguson, The Anti-politics Machine: "Development", Depoliticisation and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho

• Joseph Hanlon, Armando Barrientos, David Hulme, Just Give Money To the Poor: the Development Revolution from the Global South

• Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control

• Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity

• Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is Another Way for Africa

• Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time

• CK Prahalad, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits

• Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, Jose Antonio Cheibub, Fernando Limongi, Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950-1990

• Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

• Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

• James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes To Improve the human Condition Have Failed

• Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom

• Joseph Stiglitz, Globalisation and Its Discontents