Jim Kolbe
Food Security
Food security is an important topic for the development agenda. It raises profound questions about the structure of the global trading system, mandates for energy production, subsidies for agriculture, research for new technology, incentives for land conversion, and the efficacy of development aid. While food prices have fallen since their highs of early 2008, they still rest above the 2007. The world’s poor spend as much as 70 percent of their income on food. The surge in food prices has served to highlight longstanding failures in the food system that need to be addressed. Price increases mean they consume less food or they put off their education needs. Volatile prices mean they cannot plan to address these needs adequately. Problems on the supply side have seen stocks of food dwindling to dangerously low levels while, on the demand side, the challenges include population growth and increasing prosperity in Asia, which in turn increases demand for meat and places huge pressure on feedstock and agricultural land. Given the complex, cross-cutting nature of the problem, there needs to be holistic policy responses, including increasing agricultural production and productivity, minimizing trade barriers between countries, and access to markets within countries.
Challenge Members:
- Carol Lancaster (Lead Coordinator, United States) is Director of the Mortara Center for International Studies and Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She was the Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 1993 to 1996. Previously, she worked at the U.S. State Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.
- Robert Fisher (United States) is a Managing Director at Hills & Company, International Consultants. He is responsible for assisting clients with trade and investment issues, as well as supporting trade capacity building projects. He has 30 years’ experience in trade and economic policy, including 10 years in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
- Max Lawson (United Kingdom) is a senior policy adviser at Oxfam Great Britain, and also leads Oxfam International's policy work on aid and development finance. In his work for campaigns and advocacy, he has specialised in the World Bank and IMF, and also on the G8, and was heavily involved in the Make Poverty History campaign in 2005.
- Andrew Natsios (United States) is a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Natsios served as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2001 to January 2006. In addition to his teaching at Georgetown, he serves as President Bush’s Special Envoy to Sudan to deal with the crisis in Darfur.
- Paulus Verschuren (The Netherlands) is Senior Director of the Partnership Development Group at Unilever. The mission of this group is to develop global nutrition and health partnerships creating social and business value. Paulus is presently Board member of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and chairman of the GAIN Business Alliance.
- Willem-Jan Laan (The Netherlands), is Director Global External Affairs Unilever, joined Unilever in 1995 as Agricultural Economic Adviser. Before joining Unilever he headed the Trade Policy Division of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture. He holds a number of chairman positions, including the Chair of the Committee of Multilateral Trade Policy of VNO-NCW.
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