Doutorado em Ecologia Humana.





extraído do Ponto Crítico -4 de novembro de 2018. Com Alterações

“Nós, da Sociedade Brasileira de Ecologia Humana (SABEH), sentimos-nos honrados por ser parte dessa história, ter ajudado na criação do primeiro doutorado em Ecologia Humana da América Latina. Trata-se de um marco histórico na história desse campo de conhecimento no mundo!”. O doutorado ocorrerá na UNEB, Campus Juazeiro, BA.

O que é Ecologia Humana? A Ecologia, sabemos, é a ciência que estuda a relação dos seres com seus ambientes. Como pensar, então, o lugar da espécie humana nos ecossistemas? A resposta a esta pergunta desdobra-se no que chamamos de Ecologia Humana, ou seja, o campo de conhecimento que estuda o lugar dos seres humanos na natureza.
Há aproximadamente 14 anos atrás, um grupo de pesquisadores (as), liderado pelo Prof. Juracy Marques, sócio fundador da SABEH, organizou no Departamento de Educação de Paulo Afonso (Campus VIII-UNEB), a primeira especialização gratuita em Ecologia Humana e Gestão socioambiental que desdobrou-se na estruturação do mestrado em Ecologia Humana no ano de 2010.
Como ele mesmo conta, como psicanalista e antropólogo, sentia-se atraído por uma análise mais holística da espécie humana mas, intuía, a dimensão disciplinar não dava conta dessa necessidade. Surpreendeu-se, ocasionalmente, com o livro que leu de Paulo Machado, intitulado Ecologia Humana. “É isso que gostaria de fazer!”, disse a si mesmo, sem imaginar que, no mundo, um corpo muito grande de pesquisadores (as) já debruçaram-se sobre essa forma de pensar os ecossistemas da espécie humana, destacando-se O Círculo Europeu de Ecologia Humana e a Sociedade Norte-Americana de Ecologia Humana (SHE).
Gradativamente foi convidando colegas de diferentes áreas do conhecimento e montando o time que levaria à frente a primeira proposta de formação a nível de pós-graduação no Brasil em Ecologia Humana.

Antes mesmo do mestrado, fundou-se o Núcleo de Estudos em Povos e Comunidades Tradicionais e Ações Socioambientais (NECTAS), para integrar-se à uma pesquisa coordenada pelo Antropólogo Alfredo Wagner com Povos e Comunidades Tradicionais em todo o Brasil. Ele coordenaria a pesquisa na Bacia do São Francisco. A gestão desse Núcleo partilhou com a Dra. Eliane Nogueira que também foi coordenadora do PPGECOH. As pesquisas realizadas pelo núcleo foram muito importantes para a organização e aprovação do mestrado que teve, à frente da primeira coordenação, a Dra. Cleonice Vergne, uma baluarte da Arqueologia do Nordeste.
Parte do grupo sentiu a necessidade de criar a Sociedade Brasileira de Ecologia Humana – SABEH, em 2012, objetivando avançar na divulgação da Ecologia Humana no Brasil. Essa sociedade científica foi fundamental para calçar, ainda mais, a proposta do mestrado, colaborando, substancialmente, na internacionalização das relações do PPGECOH, tanto com a Europa, como Estados Unidos e América Latina. Foi, sem soma de dúvidas, uma grande parceira na criação da Rede Latino Americana de Ecologia Humana (RELAEH), estruturada no Paraguai em 2016, já sob a presidente da Filósofa e Jurista Alzeni Tomáz, hoje, mestranda em Ecologia Humana pela UNEB.
O Professor Geraldo Marques, considerado o patrono do mestrado, dizia sempre: “Não sai da minha cabeça a doce impressão de que esse projeto foi pensado por meninos e meninas do Sertão, dantes, impensável”.
Este percurso, de mais de uma década, congregando esforços de todos (as) os (as) pesquisadores (as) engajados (as) na causa da Ecologia Humana, culminou com a estruturação de um projeto de doutorado que foi um dos produtos do estágio pós-doutoral em Ecologia Humana que Juracy Marques realizou na Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), sob a supervisão da Dra. Iva Pires, atual presidenta da Society for Human Ecology (SHE). A proposta foi submetida e aprovada pelo Departamento de Tecnologias e Ciências Sociais (DTCS-III), que acabava de recepcionar o PPGECOH, deslocado do Campus de Paulo Afonso.
Depois disso, ponderou-se que era necessário aguardar a nova avaliação da CAPES, haja vista, haver uma controversa exigência de que o programa de mestrado tivesse conceito 4, sendo que, até então, éramos conceito 3 na CAPES.
Em 2018, já com o Professor Carlos Alberto e o Prof. Ricardo Amorim, à frente da coordenação do PPGECOH, a proposta do doutorado em Ecologia Humana e Gestão Socioambiental foi encaminhada para avaliação da CAPES, após uma calorosa reunião com a Pró-Reitora de Pós-Graduação da UNEB, a Dra. Tânia Hetkowski. O Reitor, Prof.  Bites de Carvalho, já havia afirmado que não mediria esforços para que conseguíssemos o doutorado para Juazeiro. Em 26 de outubro de 2018, fomos tomados pela intensa alegria da aprovação do nosso doutorado, sonhado e lapidado por tantas mãos.
Nós, da Sociedade Brasileira de Ecologia Humana (SABEH), difundindo pela web, com a publicação de diversos livros pela Editora Sabeh e pelos artigos científicos na Revista Ecologia Humanas, única do mundo de circulação em língua portuguesa, sentimo-nos honrados por ser parte dessa história, ter ajudado na criação do primeiro doutorado em Ecologia Humana da América Latina. Trata-se de um marco histórico na história desse campo de conhecimento no mundo
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UNDERSTANDING GENDER, CONFLICT AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Extract on: The Toxic Remnants of War

Women are often disproportionately responsible for providing ‘subsistence’ products in areas affected by conflict, placing them at risk from gender based violence. Developing policies to address these and other harms requires a greater understanding of the gendered impacts of environmental consequences of armed conflicts. Credit: UN Environment.
Last year’s landmark UNEA-2 resolution on conflict and the environment, the most significant of its kind since 1992, was the product of tough negotiations. Fortunately however, a hard-fought reference on gender made the final version of the text: ‘further recognising specific negative effects of environmental degradation on women and the need to apply a gender perspective with respect to the environment and armed conflicts’. Alexandria Reid suggests that the reference itself is unquestionably a positive step. But to effectively incorporate this gender perspective in future policy, we need to do more than just recognise the effects. Instead we need to fully understand and clarify what gendered approaches mean in the context of conflict, peacebuilding and the environment.
GENDER AND THE ENVIRONMENT: HIDDEN RIGHTS, ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
The importance of gender in our understanding of the environment and conflict is often camouflaged. Take, for example, the infamous natural resource exploitation that characterised the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the role of women in the exploitation of natural resources during the war is rarely acknowledged. Yet in the province of South Kivu in the eastern DRC, 70% of traders of illicit goods, including coltan, gold and copper, were women. Likewise, in Côte d’Ivoire, another conflict fuelled by natural resources, UN Environment recently documented gold mining sites run entirely by women in the centre-west of the country. These surprising figures reflect a mundane reality: approaches that fail to account for gender miss the fact that women are both frequently the primary managers of their local environment, and the main users of natural resources before, after and during conflict.
The pervasiveness of women’s responsibility for environmental management hinges on a gendered division of labour, in which women are often disproportionately responsible for providing ‘subsistence’ products such as food, water and fuel. This often-burdensome gender-specific role helps to explain the UNEA-2 resolution’s focus on the ‘specificnegative effects of environmental degradation on women’. This is important because, whilst a sensitive approach to addressing gender-specific vulnerability and resilience has been widely embraced in the field of climate changemitigation, such an understanding is still lacking in policy on the environment and conflict.
For both men and women, failing to include gender in post-conflict policy is a flawed approach from both an environmental and a human rights perspective. As UN Environment notes, women’s roles mean that the well-being of whole households and communities frequently depends on their ability to access resources, including during conflict. And, as is the case with climate change and natural disasters, even where daily life is disrupted by armed conflict, women’s responsibilities tend to remain the same in spite of additional environmental pressures. These pressures include degradation directly and indirectly connected to armed conflict. This is evident in women’s experiences in Sudan, for example, where displaced women are still responsible for the collection of fuel and water, but deforestation surrounding refugee camps forces women to travel up to 3-6 miles further to find the same resources. This exposes them to an array of risks unique to their gendered environmental responsibilities, including theft, rape, harassment, and other forms of gender based violence.
A gendered approach to risk analysis also shows that a combination of social and biological risk factors can disproportionately expose women to health problems associated with the toxic remnants of war. Women and men are inevitably exposed to different types and concentrations of pollutants in war, including chemical contamination from conflict. Risk enhancing social factors might include occupational exposures through the informal scrap metal trade, or unregulated mining. They may also include a lack of access to healthcare, due to institutional collapse or stigmatisation, a distinct post-conflict issue faced by many women.
Gendered biological factors that affect risks posed by the toxic remnants of war include the physiological differences between men and women, and their resultant differential susceptibility to damage caused by exposure to toxic chemicals. For example, studies show that women’s physiology exposes them to greater risks than men because toxic substances and heavy metals are stored more easily in their bodies due to their higher fat content. This exposure to TRW can have generational effects, particularly in a reproductive context for women. Mothers located in the vicinity of the Da Nang airbase in Vietnam continue to transmit dioxins in their breast milk from the chemical Agent Orange, used in the Vietnam War in the 1970s.
Clearly then, throughout the lifecycle of conflicts, individuals are affected differently by environmental damage and degradation because of their class, race, age and ethnicity but also because of their gender. Identifying and mitigating these risks requires a gendered lens, with an awareness of the often-overlooked extent of women’s relationships and responsibilities as environmental managers and consumers.
It is important to stress that, whilst a gendered lens is often seen as being synonymous with the inclusion of women’s perspectives, it applies to identifying gendered distinct risks to men too. As UN Environment note, only by first understanding and identifying the responsibilities associated with gender roles, can we then recognise the specific negative effects of conflict-induced degradation for both men and women, and plan accordingly. Crucially, some risks can then be alleviated by providing measures as simple as fuel-efficient cooking stoves or transport to resource sources.
GENDERED DIVIDENDS: ENVIRONMENT AND PEACEBUILDING
There is an opportunity to be seized by identifying and responding to these gendered risks. A gendered approach can improve not only the lives of men and women in conflict and post-conflict situations, but it can also reap significant environmental dividends. This is the true spirit of the 2016 UNEA-2 resolution, which captures a deeper understanding of the environmental impacts of conflict, and the need to mitigate them throughout the life cycle of conflicts whilst also framing wartime environmental damage as a humanitarian issue, with references not only to gender, but also to human rights and the protection of vulnerable groups.
Harnessing these positive environmental dividends requires policymakers to think about gender and the way social roles shape everyday interactions with the environment in conflict affected areas. Where women are identified as the primary managers of local resources, effective management and reform will remain incomplete and ineffective if a gendered lens is not considered. For example, evidence from India, Nepal and Kenya shows that where women are involved in decision-making about water and sanitation facilities, the installations are better maintained, better frequented and more technically appropriate.
Likewise, understanding resource management and usage on the ground can help to minimise the more short-term environmental effects of displacement that often force people into unsustainable resource use and so worsen degradation in the long-run. Negative environmental impacts such as deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution commonly associated with displacement can be better mitigated by empowering women to make sustainable environmental decisions. Well-recorded incidents such as the 58% reduction of woodland cover in areas around camps for refugees fleeing the Mozambique civil war in Zimbabwe 1994 could have been mitigated by increased female access to eco-fuel, for example. Eco-fuel briquettes distributed to women for fuel are already alleviating serious problems with deforestation and air pollution as well as gendered violence surrounding the Ugandan Nakivale refugee camps.
Finally, nothing should be more encouraging than the fact that all the necessary platforms and endorsements already exist at an international level for environmental peacebuilding to build upon a full commitment to a gendered approach. The international community is already committed to a gender mainstreaming strategy that requires all policy to be formed with an active awareness of gender in mind, and in peacebuilding more widely, the importance of gender has been fully recognised by the international community. The value of women’s participation in post-conflict peacebuilding is recognised in the historic UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security, and more recently in resolution 2242 (2015).
GETTING IT RIGHT, FROM THE START
One of the best entry points for the inclusion of gender in environmental peacebuilding may be in the post-conflict environmental assessments that provide early roadmaps for countries emerging from war. But a study by the RANDthink-tank highlighted that these assessments have so far ‘generally failed to address the differential effects of conflict on men and women’. Resolution 1325 stresses that to strive for gender equality, women must be included alongside men in both informal and formal institutions and political structures from the beginning of the peace process. These must include the environmental and natural resource specific reforms that are the subject of early environmental assessments, and a commitment to mapping the gendered impacts of environmental degradation in post-conflict assessments would help inform both humanitarian assistance and policy measures.
Last year’s UNEA-2 resolution is an opportunity to improve post-conflict environmental governance and to protect human rights, but both gender and the environment are cross-cutting issues that need more than fine words and inadequate resources. Meaningful change will require that governments, international organisations and practitioners follow through on the resolution with conviction, as well as with evidence-based policy-making.

Alex Reid is currently pursuing a master’s in Conflict, Security and Development at King’s College London, with a specialism in environmental issues. She can be found tweeting about the environment and armed conflict at @alexHREID 
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The environment, public health, and human ecology

* text extracted on: The World Bank GroupABSTRACT
This handbook is designed to provide guidance in detecting, identifying, assessing, and measuring environmental and related ecological effects. It offers an overview of the implications of economic development projects for natural resources, environmental systems, public and occupational health, and human ecology. The handbook is organized as follows: Chapter 1 describes the World Bank's policy of "sustainable development," the project cycle and opportunities for environmental input into that cycle, and the role of cost-benefit assessments and the difficulties of quantifying the benefits of environmental protection measures. Chapter 2 examines four environmental problems-air pollution, water pollution, soil waste disposal, and noise pollution-caused primarily by industrial and energy-related development project. Chapter 3 focuses on direct and indirect health risks caused by environmental problems, and provides a comprehensive plan to combat these impacts. Chapter 4 discusses some possible adverse effects of tropical agricultural development and ways to mitigate them. Chapter 5 provides a framework for analyzing environmental impacts associated with a wide variety of industrial development projects in developing nations. Problems related to project design, site selection, and project operations are considered as are appropriate measures to alleviate them. Chapter 6 first discusses the environmental damage and possible mitigating measures associated with exploring, mining, and developing fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas, and coal. It then looks at the effects of electric power projects and addresses ways to control the impacts of fossil-fuel generating plants, large-scale hydroelectric projects, and renewable sources of energy. The last chapter discusses the planning tools available for managing urban and regional development.
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Wide inequalities in people’s well-being cast a shadow on sustained human development progress

Read the Human Development Indices and Indicators: 2018 Statistical Update at http://report.hdr.undp.org
According to the latest Human Development Index, people living in the very high human development countries can expect to live 19 years longer, and spend seven more years in school, than those living in the group of low human development countries.
New York, 14 September 2018 – Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Ireland and Germany lead the ranking of 189 countries and territories in the latest Human Development Index (HDI), while Niger, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Chad and Burundi have the lowest scores in the HDI’s measurement of national achievements in health, education and income, released today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The overall trend globally is toward continued human development improvements, with many countries moving up through the human development categories: out of the 189 countries for which the HDI is calculated, 59 countries are today in the very high human development group and only 38 countries fall in the low HDI group. Just eight years ago in 2010, the figures were 46 and 49 countries respectively.
Ireland enjoyed the highest increase in HDI rank between 2012 and 2017 moving up 13 places, while Turkey, the Dominican Republic and Botswana were also developing strongly, each moving up eight places. All three steepest declines in human development ranking were countries in conflict: the Syrian Arab Republic had the largest decrease in HDI rank, falling 27 places, followed by Libya (26 places), and Yemen (20 places).
Movements in the HDI are driven by changes in health, education and income. Health has improved considerably as shown by life expectancy at birth which has increased by almost seven years globally, with Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia showing the greatest progress, each experiencing increases of about 11 years since 1990. And, today’s school-age children can expect to be in school for 3.4 years longer than those in 1990.

Disparities between and within countries continue to stifle progress.
Average HDI levels have risen significantly since 1990 – 22 percent globally and 51 percent in least developed countries – reflecting that on average people are living longer, are more educated and have greater income. But there remain massive differences across the world in people’s well-being.
A child born today in Norway, the country with the highest HDI, can expect to live beyond 82 years old and spend almost 18 years in school. While a child born in Niger, the country with the lowest HDI, can expect only to live to 60 and spend just five years in school. Such striking differences can be seen again and again.
“On average, a child born today in a country with low human development can expect to live just over 60 years, while a child born in a country with very high human development can expect to live to almost 80. Similarly, children in low human development countries can expect to be in school seven years less than children in very high human development countries,” said Achim Steiner UNDP Administrator. “While these statistics present a stark picture in themselves, they also speak to the tragedy of millions of individuals whose lives are affected by inequity and lost opportunities, neither of which are inevitable.”
A closer look at the HDI’s components sheds light on the unequal distribution of outcomes in education, life expectancy and income within countries. The Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index allows one to compare levels of inequality within countries, and the greater the inequality, the more a country’s HDI falls.
While significant inequality occurs in many countries, including in some of the wealthiest ones, on average it takes a bigger toll on countries with lower human development levels. Low and medium human development countries lose respectively 31 and 25 percent of their human development level from inequality, while for very high human development countries, the average loss is 11 percent.
“While there is ground for optimism that the gaps are narrowing, disparities in people’s well-being are still unacceptably wide. Inequality in all its forms and dimensions, between and within countries, limits people’s choices and opportunities, withholding progress,” said Selim Jahan, Director of the Human Development Report Office at UNDP.

Gender gaps in early years are closing, but inequalities persist in adulthood.
One key source of inequality within countries is the gap in opportunities, achievements and empowerment between women and men. Worldwide the average HDI for women is six percent lower than for men, due to women’s lower income and educational attainment in many countries.
Although there has been laudable progress in the number of girls attending school, there remain big differences between other key aspects of men and women’s lives. Women’s empowerment remains a particular challenge.
Global labor force participation rates for women are lower than for men – 49 percent versus 75 percent. And when women are in the labor market, their unemployment rates are 24 percent higher than their male counterparts. Women globally also do much more unpaid domestic and care work than men.
Overall, women’s share of parliamentary seats remains low although it varies across regions, from 17.5 and 18 percent in South Asia and the Arab States, respectively; to 29 percent in Latin America and Caribbean and OECD countries. Violence against women affects all societies, and in some regions childhood marriage and high adolescence birth rates undermine the opportunities for many young women and girls. In South Asia, 29 percent of women between the ages of 20 and 24 were married before their 18th birthday.
High adolescent birth rates, early motherhood, and poor and unequal access to pre- and post-natal health services result in a high maternal mortality ratio. At 101 per 1,000 live births, Sub-Saharan Africa’s adolescent birth rate is more than twice the world average of 44 per 1,000 live births. Latin America and the Caribbean follows with 62 per 1,000 live births. Even though Sub-Saharan Africa’s maternal mortality ratio is 549 deaths per 100,000 live births, some countries in the region such as Cabo Verde have achieved a much lower rate (42 deaths per 100,000 live births).

Looking beyond the HDI at the Quality of Development.
There is tremendous variation between countries in the quality of education, healthcare and many other key aspects of life.
In Sub-Saharan Africa there are on average 39 primary school pupils per teacher, followed by South Asia with 35 pupils per teacher. But in OECD countries, East Asia and the Pacific, and Europe and Central Asia there is an average of one teacher for every 16-18 primary school pupils. And, while in OECD countries and East Asia and the Pacific there are on average 29 and 28 physicians for every 10,000 people respectively, in South Asia there are only eight, and in Sub-Saharan Africa not even two.
“Much of the world’s attention is on data that tells only a part of the story about people’s lives. For instance, it is increasingly clear that it is not enough simply to count how many children are in school: we need also to know whether they are learning anything. Focusing on quality is essential to foster sustainable and sustained human development progress,” concludes Mr. Jahan.
Key regional development trends, as shown by the HDI and other human development indices: 
  • Arab states: The region has seen a 25.5 percent increase in its HDI value since 1990. The Arab States lose 25 percent of overall HDI value when adjusted for inequalities. The region also has the second largest gender gap across all developing regions measured by the Gender Development Index (GDI) (14.5 percent gap between men and women in the HDI). Women’s labour force participation rate is the lowest among developing regions at 21 percent.

  • East Asia and the Pacific: The region registered the second highest growth in HDI at 41.8 percent between 1990 and 2017. However, when adjusted for inequality, it experienced a 15.6 percent loss in HDI. While the gender gap between men and women in HDI is 4.3 percent, below the global average of six percent, women’s share of parliamentary seats remains one of the lowest among developing regions at 19.8 percent, compared to the global average of 23.5 percent.

  • Europe and Central Asia: The region has an average HDI value of 0.771 – the highest among the developing regions. The region also shows the lowest overall loss in HDI due to inequality at 11.7 percent, similar to the rate of OECD countries (11.9 percent). And it registers the lowest inequality between men and women among the developing regions as measured by the GII. However, the labour force participation rate for women is still much lower than for men (45.5 versus 70.3 percent), and women only hold 20.7 of the seats in parliament.

  • Latin America and the Caribbean: Latin America and the Caribbean enjoy high levels of human development, second only to Europe and Central Asia. However, when adjusted for inequality, the region’s HDI drops by 21.8 percent due to the unequal distribution of human development, particularly in income. The region has the narrowest gap between men and women in HDI at two percent, below the global average of six percent. However, it has the second highest adolescent birth rate and the labour force participation rate for women is significantly lower than for men (51.6 vs 77.5 percent).

  • South Asia: South Asia experienced the fastest HDI growth among developing regions with a 45.3 percent increase since 1990. During that period, life expectancy grew by 10.8 years, as did expected years of schooling for children (by 21 percent). The loss in HDI due to inequalities is about 26 percent. South Asia has the widest gap between men and women in HDI at 16.3 percent.

  • Sub-Saharan Africa: The region has seen a 35 percent growth in HDI since 1990. Twelve countries in the region are now in the medium human development group, and four countries – Botswana, Gabon, Mauritius and Seychelles – are now in the high human development group. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest regional loss due to inequality (31 percent). Rwanda has the largest share of seats in parliament in the world held by women (55.7 percent).

Read the Human Development Indices and Indicators: 2018 Statistical Update at http://report.hdr.undp.org
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Global hunger continues to rise, new UN report says

extract on: WHO, FAO


821 million people now hungry and over 150 million children stunted, putting hunger eradication goal at risk

11 September 2018
News Release

Rome


New evidence continues to signal that the number of hungry people in the world is growing, reaching 821 million in 2017 or one in every nine people, according to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018 released today. Limited progress is also being made in addressing the multiple forms of malnutrition, ranging from child stunting to adult obesity, putting the health of hundreds of millions of people at risk.
Hunger has been on the rise over the past three years, returning to levels from a decade ago. This reversal in progress sends a clear warning that more must be done and urgently if the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger is to be achieved by 2030. 
The situation is worsening in South America and most regions of Africa, while the decreasing trend in undernourishment that characterized Asia seems to be slowing down significantly.
The annual UN report found that climate variability affecting rainfall patterns and agricultural seasons, and climate extremes such as droughts and floods, are among the key drivers behind the rise in hunger, together with conflict and economic slowdowns.
“The alarming signs of increasing food insecurity and high levels of different forms of malnutrition are a clear warning that there is considerable work to be done to make sure we ‘leave no one behind’ on the road towards achieving the SDG goals on food security and improved nutrition,” the heads of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and WHO warned in their joint foreword to the report. 
“If we are to achieve a world without hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030, it is imperative that we accelerate and scale up actions to strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of food systems and people’s livelihoods in response to climate variability and extremes,” the leaders said.

The impact of climate variability and extremes on hunger 
Changes in climate are already undermining production of major crops such as wheat, rice and maize in tropical and temperate regions and, without building climate resilience, this is expected to worsen as temperatures increase and become more extreme.  
Analysis in the report shows that the prevalence and number of undernourished people tend to be higher in countries highly exposed to climate extremes. Undernourishment is higher again when exposure to climate extremes is compounded by a high proportion of the population depending on agricultural systems that are highly sensitive to rainfall and temperature variability.   
Temperature anomalies over agricultural cropping areas continued to be higher than the long-term mean throughout 2011–2016, leading to more frequent spells of extreme heat in the last five years. The nature of rainfall seasons is also changing, such as the late or early start of rainy seasons and the unequal distribution of rainfall within a season. 
The harm to agricultural production contributes to shortfalls in food availability, with knock-on effects causing food price hikes and income losses that reduce people’s access to food.  

Slow progress on ending all forms of malnutrition 
Poor progress has been made in reducing child stunting, the report says, with nearly 151 million children aged under 5 too short for their age due to malnutrition in 2017, compared to 165 million in 2012. Globally, Africa and Asia accounted for 39% and 55%  of all stunted children, respectively.
Prevalence of child wasting remains extremely high in Asia where almost 1 in 10 children under five has low weight for their height, compared to just one in 100 in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The report describes as “shameful” the fact that one in three women of reproductive age globally is affected by anaemia, which has significant health and development consequences for both women and their children. No region has shown a decline in anaemia among women of reproductive age, and the prevalence in Africa and Asia is nearly three times higher than in North America.
Rates of exclusive breastfeeding in Africa and Asia are 1.5 times higher than those in North America where only 26% of infants under 6 months receive breastmilk exclusively.

The other side of hunger: obesity on the rise 
Adult obesity is worsening, and more than one in eight adults in the world is obese. The problem is most significant in North America, but Africa and Asia are also experiencing an upward trend, the report shows.
Undernutrition and obesity coexist in many countries, and can even be seen side by side in the same household. Poor access to nutritious food due to its higher cost, the stress of living with food insecurity, and physiological adaptations to food deprivation help explain why food-insecure families may have a higher risk of overweight and obesity.

Call for action
The report calls for implementing and scaling up interventions aimed at guaranteeing access to nutritious foods and breaking the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition. Policies must pay special attention to groups who are the most vulnerable to the harmful consequences of poor food access: infants, children aged under five, school-aged children, adolescent girls, and women.
At the same time, a sustainable shift must be made towards nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food systems that can provide safe and high-quality food for all.
The report also calls for greater efforts to build climate resilience through policies that promote climate change adaptation and mitigation, and disaster risk reduction.  

Key facts and figures
  • Number of  hungry people in the world in 2017: 821 million or 1 in every 9 people
  • in Asia: 515 million
  • in Africa: 256.5 million
  • in Latin America and the Caribbean: 39 million
  • Children under 5 affected by stunting (low height-for-age): 150.8 million (22.2%)
  • Children under 5 affected by wasting (low weight-for-height): 50.5 million (7.5%)
  • Children under 5 who are overweight (high weight-for-height): 38.3 million (5.6%)
  • Percentage of women of reproductive age affected by anaemia: 32.8%
  • Percentage of infants aged below 6 months who were exclusively breastfed: 40.7%
  • Adults who are obese: 672 million (13% or 1 in 8 adults).
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Food waste: alarming rise will see 66 tonnes thrown away every second

extrat on: The guardian
New analysis warns food loss is set to increase by a third by 2030 unless urgent action is taken
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Food donations from supermarkets and retailers at the warehouse of the Real Junk Food Project, a UK-based campaign to stop food waste through redistribution.
 Food donations from supermarkets and retailers at the warehouse of the Real Junk Food Project, a UK-based campaign to stop food waste through redistribution. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
The amount of food that is wasted each year will rise by a third by 2030, when 2.1bn tonnes will either be lost or thrown away, equivalent to 66 tonnes per second, according to new analysis.
The report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) warns that the global response to food waste is fragmented and inadequate, and that the problem is growing at an alarming rate.
The report suggests the creation of an ecolabel, similar to fair trade campaigns, to encourage customers to buy from companies that have committed to reducing waste.
“The scale of the problem is one that will continue to grow while we’re developing our solutions,” said Shalini Unnikrishnan, a partner and managing director at BCG. “As population grows rapidly in certain industrialising parts of the world, like in Asia, consumption is growing very rapidly.”
Each year, 1.6bn tonnes of food worth approximately $1.2tn, goes to waste – about one third of the food produced globally.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that about 815 million of the 7.6 billion people in the world (10.7%), were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2016.
Food waste and loss accounts for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the FAO.
Unless urgent action is taken by governments, companies and consumers, the report warns there is little chance of meeting UN targets to halve food waste by 2030. Over this period, food loss and waste is projected to increase in most regions around the world, with a significant spike in Asia, according to the study.
Countries that are industrialising and have a growing population will see the largest increases, said Unnikrishnan. “As wealth grows, people are demanding more food, more diverse food, food that is not grown locally. That’s going to increase food loss and waste.”
At the same time, there are inefficiencies in the supply of food in such countries. “There are still a lot of smallholder farmers, there are still a lot of gaps in our ability to fully utilise the production that is happening,” she added.
While in developing countries waste occurs during production processes, in wealthy countries waste is mostly driven by retailers and consumers, who throw away food because they have purchased too much or because it does not meet aesthetic standards.
Supermarket promotions and a lack of accurate information have contributed to waste, the report warned. Many customers wrongly believe that meat and vegetables are always healthier when fresh than when frozen. “In fact, the opposite is often true: frozen food products frequently retain more nutrients than unfrozen items, which can degrade during the shipping process,” the report said. 
Companies have experimented with waste reduction initiatives, such as Tesco’s buy one get one free pilot, which allows customers to pick up their free product when they actually need it. But the report stated such efforts do not go far enough. The creation of an ecolabel could encourage companies to work harder.
The report said companies have been slow to adopt digital tools that enable better matching of supply and demand. It urged companies to show leadership by investing in infrastructure, as well as education for consumers, company employees and farmers. 
Changes in government regulation, which do not incentivise waste reduction, are also needed, said Unnikrishnan. “If you’re a producer trying to to produce blueberries, you’re dealing with size restrictions, storage restrictions, expiration date restrictions,” she said, adding that these will restrictions will vary across markets. In China, for example, there are rules regarding the size of fresh blueberries that can be sold.
There is more awareness of food loss and waste, but that the global response so far is inadequate. “It’s fragmented, limited and ultimately insufficient given the magnitude of the problem,” she said. 
“It’s not an easy problem, no single country, no single entity can solve the entire problem on their own.”

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