Week 1

Question 1

The main different between SDG2 and SDG

Answer 1

SDG2 now is more intergalactic focused rather than hunger driven

Question 2

Data on hunger and malnutrition (on developing countries)

Answer 2

Undernourishment in Africa has gone down from 35.% to 12.5%

Question 3

Why in recent years that the number of undernourished population starts rising again?

Answer 3

This is due to population growth in the recent years, if this rate stays constant, zero hunger target will not be achieved

Question 4

Hendricks: Main changes in SDG

Answer 4

The formulation of SDG2 on nutrition instead of hunger

Aid to guaranteeing good working food chains (from production to consumption)

Integrated in sustainable ecosystems

Requires multidisciplinary knowledge (integrating and applying knowledge from different academic disciplines)

Better nutrition leads to better consequences

Question 5

Hendricks: Old systems SDG

Answer 5

It was incident driven, that only countries that appear on the news are getting aids

There was limited/no structural solutions

In the past, there was not enough attention for the environmental degradation effects of increasing the production of food

Question 6

Hendricks: main four problems

Answer 6

1. There is not enough supply of food in certain countries
2. Imbalanced markets to integrate supply and demand of food
3. There was not enough demand in certain countries
4. No incentives to produce and consume sustainably

Question 7

Do solutions work?

Answer 7

Solving hunger is not solving malnutrition (people need to eat the right things)

Higher price would incentivize farms to produce more (however, in Asian and Africa there is labor and land constrains)

Higher incomes in general (this would increase the food demand however not by much because people have substitutes once they get richer)

(Or higher income would lead to an overall price inflation as long as production or imports are not increased enough)

Lower price for staple food (it might lead to malnutrition because basic food are not nutritious)

Immigration (leads to obesity and health problems due to the migration from rural to urban areas)

Question 8

What does a real solution consist of?

Answer 8

The real solution needs a multidisciplinary team that offers knowledge, perspectives in different academic disciplines, by looking at all relevant aspects (demand, supply, market, climate change, energy, competition for land and water)

Question 9

So SDG2 is such a revolution in Hendricks paper?

Answer 9

1. Global participation: for the first time, all countries are committed to address these goals, the global engagement leads to significant international cooperation
2. Global approach to malnutrition: Malnutrition is no longer seen as just the problem of individual countries. All countries are involved to offer and receive help from each other

3.Convergence of development areas: SDG emphasize the convergence of economic development, social equity, and environmental protection. It focuses on a more integrated approach

Question 10

Two streams in Sens paper

Answer 10

Nature focused (uncontrollable)

Society focused (intervention could lead to better outcomes)

Question 11

Malthus’s work (nature focused)

Answer 11

Malthus states that food growth is slower than the population growth, this leads to starvation. Which in turn solves the problem because more people will die and slowing down population growth

Malthus is against the societal solution which distribute food from the rich to the poor

He says the only way to combat population growth is by combatting the excessive and irregular gratification of the human passions, however he is skeptical about it because we cannot control human nature

Question 12

Sens judgement on Malthus

Answer 12

Sen criticized Malthus focus on nature, he said that it is not food per head that is crucial, but the distribution of food in general

Question 13

Why some people cannot have access to food and what it leads to

Answer 13

1. Unemployment
2. Illness
3. Fall prices of other goods
4. High price of food

It leads to ownership decisive (if the above happens, who owns the food)

Exchange possibilities are crucial

Inequity is important

Question 14

Three policies that Malthus suggested

Answer 14

Anticipation: predicting and preparing a solution before some challenges occur. There is better anticipation if we have proper analysis of ownership and possibilities to exchange for groups

Relief: It looks at food entitlement. He suggested relief centers but it might be costly if rules are not set up correctly

Work relief centers which it generates jobs for people

Prevention: guarantee purchasing power for the poor and entitlement to ownership such as land and grazing.