What's New

West Africa is on the cusp: after years of stagnation and decline, the region has seen steady growth for nearly two decades, and is moving from recovery to transformation

The May issue of the FAO Monthly News Report was released today. The report covers ongoing global and regional trends in grain prices and policies. This month's report includes articles on the new WTO Director General, Brazil and Argentina joining the US in the International Corn Alliance, rising wheat prices in the Black Sea region, and Iran's stoppage of wheat exports.

Nearly 30 years after the 1984 famine that left more than 400,000 people dead, Ethiopia has made significant progress toward food security. Some of these recent successes include a reduction in poverty, an increase in crop yields and availability, and an increase in per capita income—rising in some rural areas by more than 50 percent!

What happened to cause this breakthrough, and what steps does the country need to stay on track?

Economic growth in the developing world relies heavily on credit, grants, and loans. But increasing poor populations' access to these financial vehicles brings with it a significant amount of risk for lenders, both public and private. When selecting development interventions to financially support, lenders and donors are often faced with an "either/or" proposition - they can fund either more sustainable (and thus less risky) projects that may have lower poverty-reducing effects or less sustainable projects that will have a higher impact on poverty.

A new report from IFPRI, WFP, and Egypt's Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) finds that in 2011, food insecurity affected an estimated 17 percent of the population, or 13.7 million people. This number is up from 2009, when 14 percent of the population suffered from food insecurity. Poverty has also risen during this time, with 15 percent of the population moving into poverty between 2009 and 2011.