“Africa is suffering from a new AIDs crisis: ‘Air-conditioned Induced Decisions.’  Our leaders live in air-conditioned homes, travel in air-conditioned cars, work in air-conditioned offices.  And it affects the decisions they make.” ~Maiko Zulu, Zambian reggae music star and activist

I had a chance to meet Maiko Zulu last week.  He wears frustration and disappointment with his country on his sleeve (and in his music).  Zambia is a country that should be improving economically.  Driven by mining large copper and cobalt reserves, economic growth has been high for the last decade, not less than 5% per year and more than 7% as recently as 2010.  The Economist in 2011 listed Zambia as one of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies. Since, 2000, average income per capita has grown by more than 40%, lifting Zambia from “low-income country” to a “lower middle-income country.”

But high economic growth and increased average income have not translated into reduced poverty or better conditions for most Zambians.  If Zambia’s national income was a dollar, the poorest 10% of Zambians receive less than $0.02 and the richest 10% control $0.43, making Zambia one of the most unequal countries on earth. Despite good news on growth and income, Zambia is becoming more unequal and poverty is actually rising.

This analysis comes from a very important report released last week, Equity in Extractives, launched by the Africa Progress Panel.  It looks closely at the 20 African resource-rich countries that depend on extractive industries and finds they are performing quite badly in converting their mineral and energy wealth into benefits for the public. A few factoids:

• Twelve of the 25 countries in the world with the highest child mortality rates are resource-rich African countries.
• Equatorial Guinea, rich with oil, is actually now classified as a high-income country with an average income of more than $27,000 a year, higher than Poland.  But Equatorial Guinea’s child-death rate is 20 times higher than Poland’s.

In general, the resource-rich African countries are badly under-performing on basic human development and poverty reduction, despite how much money they’re making.  This chart tells the story: on the left are the countries’ ranking on wealth (actually income), and on the right is their ranking on human development indicators.  That rightward slope means people aren’t getting the health, education, and opportunity that they deserve.  Most resource-rich countries under-perform in every indicator. (Tanzania and Ghana are notable.)

One of the most interesting bits of the report is a forensic analysis that shows that inequality is growing in resource-rich countries, or at least in those the report analyzed.  The data is hard to come by, but seems to show that not only is the economic growth and revenue from oil and mining boom not being shared, but the elite are capturing (stealing?) ever more of the money over time. This means less poverty reduction than there should be, and in some cases more poverty than there was.

More than that, revenues that rightfully belong to the people of these countries are diverted through poor governance, thereby robbing the majority of citizens from the chance to improve their lives via social services and government investment intended to diversify economies. By not widening opportunities away from dependence on extractives and creating more jobs, inequality is not addressed.

Gawain Kripke and Maiko Zulu in Cape Town last week.

The paper is important, and not only if you’re interested in extractive industries.  The analysis provides useful insights and ways to look at the issues that will interest anyone who cares about development and poverty.  The paper is studiously optimistic about the role extractive resources can play in benefiting development and poverty reduction.

Meanwhile, the truth of the inequality of growth is becoming more evident to the public in these countries.  As Maiko Zulu observes above, there is a disconnect between the public interest and those of the plutocrats and oligarchs who are running the countries.

“We can’t speak of economic growth when people are dying of poverty.”

Will disconnect eventually lead to discontent?  That’s a risky proposition that could lead anywhere…

To read the Equity in Extractives report, click here.

The chair of the Africa Progress Panel, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, has pushed back on an oil industry attack against the landmark US Dodd-Frank Act oil and mining payment disclosure provision. In an op-ed in today’s New York Times, Annan said the lawsuit launched by the American Petroleum Institute against the US Securities and Exchange Commission was a “strategic folly” and those companies supporting the suit, such as Chevron, Exxon, BP and Shell were “swimming against the tide of reform”.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Chair of the Africa Progress Panel. UN Photo/Evan Schneider

The Africa Progress Panel’s 2013 report “Equity in Extractives” was released today in Cape Town and focuses on steps to take to ensure that Africa’s oil, gas and mining boom actually benefits the majority of African’s rather than a select few. The panel includes the former head of the IMF, Michel Camdessus; former US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin; former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo; former first lady of Mozambique Graca Machel; and Peter Eigen, founder of Transparency International and former chair of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, among others.

These heavy hitters stand behind a report that says there “is no credible evidence to indicate that the Dodd-Frank requirements will impose significant additional costs, let alone threaten the competitive position of some of the world’s largest companies.” The report says that the “Cardin-Lugar” or Section 1504 provision of Dodd-Frank and forthcoming European Union disclosure requirements provisions represents an important opportunity for African civil society groups to work with multinational companies to “achieve higher standards of disclosure” but notes that some companies appear “to be squandering that opportunity” with the US lawsuit.

In advance of June’s G8 summit, the report says “all countries must adopt and enforce” project-by-project disclosure standards such as in the US and EU—“as major players in Africa’s extractives sector, Australia, Canada and China should be the next countries to actively support this emerging global consensus.”

Oxfam’s new Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima, is from Uganda, a country undergoing its own oil boom, and is in Cape Town for the World Economic Forum Africa. She said “African governments must use oil, gas and mining to raise revenue, but this boom must not steamroll the rights of communities living on top of Africa’s mineral wealth. It is important that local communities are informed and consulted about extractive industry projects that affect them.”

With the political boost from today’s African Progress Report we are one step closing to realizing the so far unrealized potential of Africa’s resource endowment.

As a mother of two, I now know that all my years of schooling did not prepare me nearly as well for working life as being a mother. As all mothers know, mothers are the ultimate project managers and multi-taskers, juggling many tasks at once, carrying out strategies but always being nimble to change course on a dime in the face of a temper tantrum, dirty diaper, or sick child. But for mothers in the developing world there are even bigger and more dire challenges, like where the next meal will come from, how to get medicine for a sick child, or finding potable drinking water. And yet, mothers in the developing world learn to cope with these challenges daily. That’s why so many are now realizing that investing in women is the key to feeding the planet and to economic growth.

According to a recent Gates Foundation report, “When women don’t control resources and income, their households may suffer from malnutrition. Men are less likely than women to reinvest their income in the health of the family.”  In a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, women are deemed to be the key to food security indicating that “if women had equal access to agricultural resources and services, food security would be greatly improved and societies would grow richer, and not only in economic terms.”

But it isn’t just NGO’s and UN bodies claiming a good return on investment when providing resources and opportunities to women, Goldman Sachs, the large investment firm also conducted research with the World Bank and concluded that “investments in women—particularly in education and labor force participation—lead to read GDP growth, as women take their earnings and invest them back in their families and communities.” And just last week the billionaire and investment guru, Warren Buffett also expressed his bullish take on women in an essay published in Fortune magazine where he declares his optimism for America’s future lies with American women, untapped resource!

So to all those mothers and multi-taskers, here is a list of 10 (thought there are undoubtedly more) tasks that women in the developing world take on each day:

1. Child rearing

This mother and child fled their villages and had just arrived at the El Salaam camp in North Darfur. Photo: Eva-Lotta Jansson / Oxfam America

2. Cooking

Cooking “arroz chaufa” (stir fried rice) in the communal pot, village of San Jacinto, Peru. Photo: Evan Abramson /Oxfam America

3. Growing commodity crops for sale

Etchi Avla on her cocoa farm in Botende, Ivory Coast. Photo: Peter DiCampo / Oxfam America

4. Selling at the market 

Since she received an Oxfam cash grant, this market vendor in Darfur is able to support her children, brothers and sisters. Photo: Elizabeth Stevens/Oxfam America

5. Fetching water

Jainaba Bojang carries a tub of water home from a bore hole and water pump in the village of Oupat, Gambia. Photo: Rebecca Blackwell:Oxfam America

6. Chopping and gathering firewood

Howa Abdullha comes back to Kebkabiye, North Darfur, carrying firewood she has gathered outside town. Photo: Eva-Lotta Jansson / Oxfam America

7. Laundry

Hencia Josena does laundry at work in a Haitian hospital. Photo: Liz Lucas/Oxfam America

8. Maintaining the house

Members of Ratnaweera family stand outside their new house in Sri Lanka.  Photo: Atul Loke/Panos for Oxfam America

9. Growing crops for food

This Cambodian farmer used system of rice intensification (SRI) practices to cultivate rice. Photo: Patrick Brown/ Oxfam America

10. Caring for elders

These three elders at the Internally Displaced Persons Magunga Camp noted that they had family looking after them. Photo: Liz Lucas/ Oxfam America

Mining industry big-wigs will gather in South Africa next week for Mining Indaba, billed as the “world’s largest mining investment conference.”  As has become de rigeur in recent years at this kind of event, there will be some discussion of social and environmental “sustainability” issues.  The final day of the event is in fact devoted to this and boasts an impressive-sounding set of panels featuring mining company CEOs, World Bank executives, government officials, and a smattering of NGOs.  This is consistent with a recent spate of mining sector sustainability initiatives including, among several others, the International Council on Mining and Metals’ Resource Endowment series, which looked at how mining can contribute more to economic development.

While this attention to sustainability is in general positive, it hasn’t driven the fundamental change in industry practice that is urgently needed.  US-based Newmont Mining’s history in Peru is one example.  Following a series of problems in Peru and elsewhere in the mid-2000s, the company commissioned a report that produced recommendations on improving its relationships with local communities.  The company’s implementation of these recommendations has been spotty at best.  Last year it was forced to postpone its massive Mina Conga project in the face of community opposition.  In December the company released another damning external review that described a “state of fear” among communities living near the mine.  Clearly the learning from past reviews hasn’t sunk in with company management.

To address this situation and the critical sustainability challenges facing the mining sector, we offer a few recommendations for the mining execs gathered in in Cape Town to consider as they schmooze, golf, and down some of those delicious South African red wines.  (Goats do Roam is my personal favorite.)

Dominic Nyame, a member of the Concerned Citizens Association of Prestea, an organization in southwest Ghana negotiating with a mining company around issues related to air and water pollution, and the proposed expansion of mining operations. Photo: Jeff Deutsch / Oxfam America

First, mining companies need to start fully respecting community consent.  While industry rhetoric on this point has improved significantly in recent years (which Oxfam has highlighted in a recent report), good examples of implementation are still lacking. Industry types often make the practice out to be more difficult than it really is and worries about communities vetoing a project are overblown.  Newmont’s problems at Mina Conga in Peru exist not because communities there are inherently anti-mining.  Rather they stem from the company’s bungled handling of community relations (by its own admission) during the early days of its presence in the community.  Getting these relationships right from the beginning and actively addressing to community concerns are critical to avoiding these problems.

Ensuring respect for the rights of women in the communities where companies operate is also critical for ensuring sustainability.  Women are often the guardians of communities’ long-term interests.  They suffer most directly from the negative impacts of mining, via the domestic violence and alcoholism to which mining often contributes.  Mining companies must carry out more rigorous and independent gender impact assessments.

Transparency has become somewhat of a cliché in discussions of sustainability in the extractive industries, but it’s an area, like women’s rights, where much work still remains to be done.  Mining companies should fully disclose all payments they make to governments – down to the project level where their impacts are felt.  To its credit, the mining industry hasn’t joined the American Petroleum Institute’s odious lawsuit seeking to block a new US law requiring these disclosures.  This is positive and should be coupled with all companies publicly embracing the law and disclosing this information beginning this year.

The thirsty folks gathered in South Africa will know that there is no sustainability issue more critical to the mining industry than protecting water resources.  South Africa itself is awash in acid mine drainage, or sulfuric acid that leaches out of mine sites and destroys ground and surface water.  This problem is a ticking time bomb in developing countries and it is incredibly expensive to fix once it starts.  Once it does, the acid needs to be treated forever.  Mining companies have the technology now to know when mining in particular ore bodies is likely to cause this problem.  They also know they shouldn’t mine there.

Finally, if mining companies want to contribute more to sustainable development, they should accept the fact that that may mean reduced profits for themselves.  Mining companies are masters at negotiating deals that enable them to avoid paying significant amounts of taxes.  In contract negotiations, industry lawyers routinely take under-trained and under-resourced government officials to the cleaners.  Yes, companies should be able to make profits, but they shouldn’t do so by exploiting unfair advantages.

Ultimately, making progress on these issues will depend on the degree to which mining companies incorporate community consent, the rights of women, transparency, and protection of water resources into their business models.  Creating incentives for performance on these issues will be critical.  Investors can play a role by only buying shares of companies with independently-verified performance metrics on sustainability, including demonstrable progress on the issues listed above.  Companies themselves can link compensation and career advancement to performance on sustainability.

It’s time for sustainability to become a central part of mining industry standards in Africa and elsewhere, rather than a sideshow.

Malawian health advocate Martha Kwataine is working to make sure her national government responds to the needs of Malawians in rural areas, not just those living in the capital.

As Mayor of San Martin Alao, Peru, Manuel Dominguez is working to better manage his own municipal funds to clean up waste blighting his town.

Village Chief Kojo Kondua IV of Abuesi, Ghana, is making sure national officials enforce fishing regulations fairly, ensuring his village’s source of jobs and food for the future.

Tanzanian farmer Emiliana Aligaesha and fellow farmers formed a successful private company; she now trains other farmers to improve their yields and market access.

Monday is Inauguration Day. As President Obama takes the oath of office for the second time, his foreign policy team is getting a makeover. Obama’s nominations of John Kerry for State, Chuck Hagel for Defense, and Jack Lew for Treasury will put new faces in the three US government cabinet roles with the most impact on America’s global development efforts.

Congress will soon be grilling Kerry, Lew, and Hagel in their confirmation hearings. Senators will likely ask questions about the nominees’ plans to protect key US alliances. No doubt many of these questions will focus on America’s military, diplomatic and trade relationships.

But some of the most powerful alliances America has aren’t with governments—they are with ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things. This week Oxfam America’s Aid Effectiveness team launched an ad campaign featuring four of these American allies. (Click on the images to learn more about each of them.)

The basis of these alliances is the tiny amount of US assistance that the United States invests in fighting poverty around the world. It’s less than one percent of the federal budget—but it’s the tool that helps local leaders like Kwataine, Dominguez, Aligaesha, and Kondua deliver powerful results.

America partly does this because we’re generous. But more important are the selfish reasons; when local leaders like these four are successful in improving their countries and communities, it delivers a world that is fairer, more peaceful, and more prosperous—which, after all, is the stated goal of much of America’s foreign policy.

Local leaders like these four need a few things from the United States to be successful. First, they need America to be honest and transparent about our goals and policies, so they know how to work with us. Second, they need us to be willing to work directly with them, and invest our time, money, and effort in their success. Finally, they need us to be willing to trust them to know what works best for their own communities and countries, rather than impose our own politics and processes on them.

So now is the time to make sure Senators ask the right questions in these confirmation hearings. How do the nominees plan to protect and deepen our development alliances with people like Kwataine, Dominguez, Aligaesha, and Kondua? Will they support strong development policies that put more trust in local leaders like these? Will they faithfully pursue policies that give local leaders in developing countries the information, capacity and control they need to solve their own problems?

The answers could determine whether President Obama is able to build a lasting legacy on fighting global poverty.

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Related Pages

Slideshow: Don’t cut aid. It’s working.

Ray Offeneheiser, President of Oxfam, in the Huffington Post: Don’t cut aid. It’s working.

Coming to a billboard near you: A very different portrayal of aid, by Jennifer Lentfer on Oxfam’s First Person blog

Press release: Novel ad campaign urges no cuts to poverty-fighting foreign aid

Storify compilations of tweets about the ad campaign: A very different portrayal of aid and Is Oxfam America just like all the others?

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Note: Oxfam America does not take U.S. federal funds, but we do support effective development programs.

A little over three months ago, I sat attentively listening to the give and take between Nigerian Female Food Hero, Susan Godwin, and Chicago Council on World Affairs Senior Fellow, Roger Thurow. Thurow was moderating a panel at the World Food Prize Symposium called A Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World Sustainably? Also part of the discussion were Sir Gordon Conway, scholar and author; plant breeding and genetics pioneer, Gebisa Ejeta, and Jane Karuku, President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

Roger Thurow and Susan Godwin at the World Food Prize Dialogue. Photo: Jacob Silberman.

Now, an online dialogue, The Future of Agriculture, is considering much the same question about addressing hunger in the face of many challenges ahead. This discussion also includes my acquaintances, Susan Godwin and Roger Thurow. Mrs. Godwin writes eloquently on the challenge of passing the legacy of farming on to the next generation in  My Daughter Wants to Be a Farmer. Thurow again plays the role of summarizing and connecting the dots at the end of week one of the conversation.

In the first week, writers like Bill McKibben, writer and founder of 350.org, and Jose Graziano del Silva, Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), argued that moving away from an agriculture dependent on fossil fuels could not only benefit the planet but set the stage for a more resilient and productive agriculture.

Joining McKibben and del Silva were thought leaders with very diverse points of view and from different parts of the world. All considered what future farming might look like if we better considered the role of women, risk, farmer-based knowledge, and less reliance on fossil fuel.

The discussion continues through this week with a new set of essays posted each day. So far the discussion has been lively. But to help build our understanding we need broad participation and dialogue. So please take some minutes each day to visit http://blogs.oxfam.org/en/future-of-agriculture. The essays are short; the implications for our future tasks are great.

After reading both Roger Thurow’s and Susan Godwin’s online contributions, I thought back to that hall in Iowa with over 800 people attending. Mrs. Godwin told how her community and other had asked her what she might offer to all the highly educated and important people that she might address in the US. She said that most important she would tell them how her work had improved the lives of her family and the other women in her community. And after a pause, during which the audience grew even more quiet, she declared, “I will tell them that I am a farmer!”

That day, that large crowd filled with educators, scientists, political leaders, and activists rose to their feet. They acknowledged that the hope for a well-fed future depends on the efforts of all stakeholders, and ideas from all sectors.

The Future of Agriculture discussion is no different. Join the conversation today.

Rohit Malpani is a campaigns advisor at Oxfam and leads the organization’s access to medicines campaign. Oxfam’s response to Progressive Economy’s “Trade Fact of the Week” 11/28/12 is cross posted from the Progressive Economy blog.

Oxfam disagrees with the analysis set out in your November 28 article about patent protection for medicines. The article incorrectly explains the TRIPS Agreement, and we do not believe there was ever a global consensus in support of the intellectual property (IP) approach promoted by USTR, as implied in your article.

The TRIPS Agreement sets out minimum standards for IP protection, and explicitly includes a series of exceptions and limitations to IP rights that may be used by governments in order to achieve public policy objectives, including improvement of health outcomes. We have long been puzzled by efforts to portray compulsory licensing as a legal tool that may only be used during health “crises” or “emergencies”. Put simply, this interpretation is unsupported by the text of the Agreement itself. Similarly, the Doha Declaration confirms the right of countries to use all IP flexibilities in TRIPS “especially”—not “only”—in relation to health emergencies and pandemics.

We question the “policy calm” that you state has existed for 10 years in relation to patented medicines. In fact, that “policy calm” has never existed. Instead, there have been on-going tensions due to the endless efforts of the USTR, under pressure by the multinational pharmaceutical industry, to renegotiate the terms and conditions of the TRIPS Agreement through other means, and especially to strip away the public health limitations and exceptions that were included in the TRIPS Agreement in 1994. Developing countries are finding increasingly that they must endure against these tensions and challenge the pressure because many patients in their countries cannot obtain the medicines they need – especially newer treatments that are still under patent protection, which tend to be out of reach. Certainly governments in poor countries should allocate more money to health care, but the exorbitant prices of many patented medicines, an increasingly familiar problem in the United States, are an absolute barrier to health care coverage in resource-deficient countries.

Together with other humanitarian groups, we have documented a persistent, severe lack of access to new treatments and quality health care across developing countries, with the lowest income groups most affected. Upgrading health infrastructure is a crucial part of the solution, as is use by governments of all the policy options available to them, including IP flexibilities, to promote the availability of quality, low-cost versions of new treatments for their populations.

Medicines, including but not only “essential medicines” as identified by the WHO, are an important component of healthcare. Depending on their affliction, patients need access to quality, effective treatments regardless of whether these are on the WHO essential medicines list (EML). Moreover, medicines are selected for inclusion in the EML based on a range of factors, including affordability; because patent-protected treatments are more expensive, they are generally not included in the list. This is a critical flaw in the papers cited in your analysis, which found—unsurprisingly—that many medicines on the EML are off-patent.

Health care also does not only refer to AIDS, TB and malaria. To say that India has a “relatively small patient population” with cancer and other non-communicable diseases is wrong. Today, the World Health Organization notes that 80 percent of all non-communicable diseases (cancer, heart disease, diabetes) are in low-income countries, especially as life-styles and eating habits undergo a dramatic shift. By some projections, there are up to 2.5 million cases of cancer in India today. Likewise, by 2025, India will have over 75 million cases of diabetes. These are not problems which can be addressed through charity and insurance. They require serious, Marshall-Plan like investments by governments to both prevent development of these diseases and, inevitably, to provide treatment to ensure that their own citizens can lead healthy lives.

Improving health outcomes in the developing world will require substantial investments in health infrastructure, services, and medicines. At the same time, we urge governments to use policy tools available to them to promote availability of quality, effective treatments at the lowest possible cost.

A few months ago, I was talking to my colleague Kimberly, about how difficult it is to talk about the future of agriculture in public without things spinning out of control. Most people don’t much care. But those who do, REALLY CARE. It doesn’t take long in any conversation, for example, before someone in the conversation begins accusing someone else of being part of a corporate conspiracy, or someone accuses a whole community of being “peasant romanticists”. The energy and anger of the interchanges sometimes seems out of proportion and quite unconstructive.

Oxfam has been engaged in agriculture policy and programming since our early beginnings—so we brush against these partisans all the time. Indeed, there are many partisans among us. Often, our favored course is to keep our heads low and avoid the rough and tumble.

But, that’s not really possible in the current era. With the launch of our GROW Campaign, we have put the issues of food, hunger, and sustainable, inclusive agriculture at the center of Oxfam’s public engagement and the heart of our policy agenda. So, how do we broach these subjects without instigating mortal combat and without making Oxfam a target of every possible interest and ideology?

Well, the best idea we came up with was to host a conversation and hope that good ideas and some elements of a consensus emerge. So that’s what we’re doing.

Starting Monday, we’re hosting a ten-day Future of Agriculture online discussion and debate. We’ve invited experts and leaders in the field to contribute provocative essays, and we’ll invite everyone else to weigh in. That means you.

Set your browsers and ready your keyboards. And jump right in!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6twOVM40QY[/youtube]

Although I don’t know quite what to say, I can’t not say something about this.

Erik Prince and his private security services company, Blackwater, gained notoriety in Iraq.  Prince had an inside track with the Bush administration, flew around with Dick Cheney on Air Force Two, secured billions in government contracts without open competition, and lunged into all sorts of difficult and sensitive places guns drawn. In Iraq, Blackwater was involved in 195 shooting incidents that involved civilians—many of which resulted in injuries or deaths of civilians. But that was just the tip of the iceberg of scandals and violations. In 2010, Prince sold Blackwater, which has been renamed several times, trying to escape the stench of scandal and atrocity.

Now, it seems, Prince has reinvented himself as an investment advisor. From a comfortable perch in Abu Dhabi (no extradition treaty with the US), Prince now raises funds and advises clients on the wonderful investment opportunities in Africa. He claims he’s raised $100 million and is shooting (err) for $400 million more. His new company, Frontier Resource Group (motto: fortuna audaces iuvat or fortune favors the bold) offers support for investors mixed with “security and logistical capacity”.

Ever the bottom dweller, Prince has focused his efforts on some of the more problematic investments (natural resources extraction), and problematic countries; DRC, Guinea, and South Sudan. Which should be appealing to problematic investors (based in Hong Kong).

So.  What can I say?

Sorry, Africa.

Sarah Kalloch’s blog is cross-posted from Women Thrive Worldwide. Oxfam America is working with women’s groups that are actively working on ending violence against women and making links between violence against women and food security. 

World Food Day—October 16—falls right in the middle of Domestic Violence Awareness month. At first the connection between the two might seem tenuous. But as Oxfam’s GROW Campaign eloquently argues, “Hunger isn’t about too many people and too little food. Hunger is about inequality. And women and girls face the greatest inequalities of all”. When women are hungry, they are forced to make impossible choices and take untenable chances that make them vulnerable to violence.

Women grow the majority of the world’s food—and are also the majority of the world’s hungry because of vast inequalities in resources and power. Women farmers in the US still face a “grass ceiling”—denied access to billions in loans from the USDA.  And the situation is worse in developing countries, where women face discrimination in land ownership, lack of education, and little access to the capital, technology, and markets needed to make a living on the land. Women could feed up to 150 million more people if they had the same agricultural resources as men, according to a United Nations report.

But before women feed the world, they must feed themselves and their families—a simple act which exposes them up to violence, rape and abuse.

• In Bangladesh, women in households with lower food security are more at risk for physical and emotional abuse.
• Women in Bostwana who did not have enough to eat were twice as likely to have sold sex and were more likely to report a lack of control in sexual relationships.
• Women displaced by conflict in Darfur face further violence when they go to gather firewood and water.
• When food rations were cut at refugee camps in Tanzania in 2005, the World Food Program warned of an increased violence against women as women ventured further afield to feed their families and tensions rose in hungry households.
• Women from Canada to the Congo who have left abusive relationship or been victims of violence are often left economically vulnerable and food insecure.

This month, join Oxfam’s GROW Campaign and hold a WFD dinner with friends and family. Take time to talk about the amazing culture, community and power of food. Food security is human security. Women feed the world—they deserve the chance to feed their families free of violence.