With extreme weather leading to failing harvests and rising food prices, food security is one of the biggest problems facing governments today. The IF campaign has highlighted four areas that they believe can help tackle hunger: aid, tax, land and transparency.
One billion people go to bed hungry every night and two million children die from malnutrition every year. We will be joined by those involved in the campaign and others to break down the problems with our food system and ask what can be done to fix it.
Chaired by Paul Vallely, a leading writer on development, he is associate editor of The Independent where he writes about ethical, cultural and political issues. He has previously reported from over 30 countries and was the Africa correspondent for The Times. He has written a number of books including Bad Samaritans: First World Ethics and Third World Debt, Promised Lands and he ghost-wrote Bob Geldof’s autobiography, Is That It?.
The panel:
Paul McMahon has worked as an advisor on sustainable food systems to environmental charities and UN agencies. He co-founded and now helps run SLM Partners, a business that invests in sustainable agriculture. He is the author of Feeding Frenzy: The New Politics of Food.
Mike Lewis leads ActionAid UK’s policy work on tax in the developing world. He was previously a UN sanctions investigator and member of the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan. He has a background in NGO research on tax, financial transparency, human rights and the role of business in conflict.
David Bull joined UNICEF UK (United Nations Children’s Fund) as Executive Director in 1999 and since the the charities income has trebled. He has travelled to scores of countries to advocate for children caught in conflict or in silent emergencies.
Mary Creagh is Labour MP for Wakefield and Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
]]>At an event hosted by the Frontline Club, an expert panel of speakers shed light on the ongoing oppression of political opposition in Bahrain, one of the most under-reported aspects of the Arab Spring, and the government’s systematic use of Western public relations companies to manage the regime’s global reputation.
In the early months of 2011, thousands of Bahraini citizens took to the streets to demand greater representation and more equitable treatment of the country’s Shia citizens, who make up 70% of the population. Dozens were killed, and hundreds more were incarcerated or went missing.
But, as moderator and The Guardian‘s Comment is Free editor Brian Whitaker explained, the story has been overshadowed by events in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, and buried by governments in both the West and the Gulf region that see Bahrain’s royal family as political allies.
“This doesn’t justify the repression that is happening in Bahrain, and it doesn’t reduce the need for people’s rights there,” he said.
Organised by advocacy group Bahrain Watch, the event highlighted the organisation’s efforts to draw attention not only to the brutality of the Bahraini government, but also to its use of international PR firms to hide its activities from the global community.
“Opposition has been suppressed by methods including incarceration and torture, extra-judicial killing and the excessive use of force,” said Marc Owen Jones, doctoral candidate at Durham University and member of Bahrain Watch.
“This has resulted in the death of at least 60 protestors, and probably more.”
The government is using what Jones described as “soft tactics” to influence international opinion, including the recruitment of international PR firms to “delegitimise the pro-reform movement and push the government narrative.”
“Since February 2011, contracts have been awarded to 18 companies, 15 of which total $32.5m – and this is a conservative estimate,” said Jones. “All of them are based in the US and the UK…the largest being M&C Saatchi and Bell Pottinger.”
These activities continue unhindered by the governments of the UK and the US, earning London the unofficial title of the “world’s reputation laundering capital”, said Jones.
“It’s worth exploring whether these companies can be targeted here,” said pannelist Adam Hunt, a human rights solicitor and partner in Deighton Pierce Glynn.
“Companies can be excluded from competing for UK government contracts if they are found guilty of professional misconduct.”
Bahrain’s leader, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah, has set up a commission of enquiry to investigate abuses by the regime. But the panel concluded that although the commission’s findings were important, its report was nothing more than window-dressing.
“There continue to be daily allegations of abuse of protestors and there have been no convictions of anyone with any level of responsibility [within the regime],” said Carla Ferstman, director of international human rights organisation REDRESS.
“The most galling aspect is that they are documenting human rights violations but not doing anything about them,” said Jones. “It’s just a testament to impunity.”
The regime has hidden the worst of its excesses from the public eye and now tortures people in secret detention centres, explained Mohammad Al Tajir, a human rights lawyer who was tortured and detained for more than three months by the regime for speaking publicly in favour of the release of political prisoners.
When Al Tajir was arrested, his bank account was frozen and his wife was told that he was dead.
“The problem is that there is no will to bring justice,” said Al Tajir. “Confession is still the only evidence in most cases. Torture has not stopped. Out of 20 people arrested, 10 will have to go to hospital.”
Asked what they expected of Bahrain in the months to come, none of the panellists had high hopes.
]]>“I’m not optimistic at all,” said Jones. “Maybe we’ll see the release of some prisoners. But I don’t see any sincerity in any of the reforms.”
The Admiral is the US Chief of Naval Operations and he gave these remarks to a Public Relations Strategic Communications Summit in June.
The general message is that the US Navy realised it could no longer afford not to participate in social media despite potential security risks and the challenges of a "dizzying" communications environment.
The speech marks a significant departure from the guidance in the US Navy’s social media handbook issued last year.
The 2010 manual discouraged Navy leaders from allowing too many individual units to set up social media accounts and urged commanders to establish a single "command presence".
In this speech, Adm. Roughead instead argues that the Navy’s leaders need to understand that they command a "workforce of communicators".
He emphasised a transparent approach so that Navy leaders could listen to their subordinates and connect with the communities they were serving.
The Admiral cited the response to the earthquake and Tsunami in Japan as an example of how local commands could provide speedy updates on the crisis situation and reply to questions from the United States.
He recognised, however, that the Navy has "only recently started to come to terms with the demand for radical transparency."
The full speech is available here, but a few other sentences that I think are worth picking out:
1. "For whether we embrace the fundamental communications changes underway today or not, our talented young workforce not only embraces them, they know nothing else. As leaders, then, it’s not enough that we keep pace with these changes – we must lead the change."
]]>2. "I submit to you that in today’s media environment, as leaders – whether we recognize it or not – we are no longer simply leading a workforce of employees or, in my case, Sailors. We are leading a workforce of communicators."
3. "…it soon became clear to me that opting out [of engaging in social media] neither guaranteed security, nor served our interests in transparency, outreach, and advocacy. Rather than consider whether we could afford to participate, we came to the conclusion that we couldn’t afford not to participate."
4. "So we joined that conversation, and the term that I’ve used is, “we’re burning the boats.” There’s no going back. We’re committed irreversibly, and in the end it was one of the easiest decisions I’ve made as the Chief of Naval Operations."