Global South 2011 Lecture 1: September 20,2011

Questions for you  Did you wonder why we start with hunger? Why the ‘lens of hunger’?  What did you learn?  What were the surprises?  What did you already know?  How can we reduce/eliminate/prevent hunger?

Hunger in the developing world  925 million people do not have enough to eat - more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union;  98 percent of the world's hungry live in developing countries;  Asia and the Pacific region is home to over half the world’s population and nearly two thirds of the world’s hungry people;

Global Hunger  Women make up a little over half of the world's population, but they account for over 60 percent of the world’s hungry.  65 percent of the world's hungry live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.

GTA,  1 million plus  46% are working Canadians  40% adults and 15% of children go hungry at least once a week

Hunger in Canada  - Number of people assisted by a food bank in March 2009: 794,738 - Number helped by food banks for the first time: 72,231 – 9% of the total - Change in food bank use since 2008: + 18 % - the largest year- over-year increase on record

Increase by provinces - Alberta (+ 61%) - Nova Scotia (+ 20%) - Ontario (+ 19%) - Manitoba (+ 18%) - British Columbia (+ 15%) - New Brunswick (+ 14%)

Hunger in the US (USDA data)  In 2008, 49.1 million lived in food- insecure households, including 16.7 million children.  12.1 million adults and 5.2 million children lived in households with very low food security.  In 2008, 1.1 million children (1.5 % of the Nation’s children) lived in households with v. low food security

Hunger in the Golden State  ve/R /c ve/R /c  11 million, more than 1 in 4 are hungry or food insecure

So, why does hunger exist? Set I. 1.Not enough food (too many people) 2.Not well distributed 3.Not ‘targeted’ well-enough 4.Too much greed, too little charity 5.People do not earn a ‘living’ wage

Causes (contd) Set II. 1.Food (and hunger) is a source of profit 2.Real food producers have no control over the production of food

Global South  What is the Global South?  Is it different from the “Third World”? Why or why not?  Is it different from the “South”?  What exactly does it help us understand?

Politics & Policy  What is politics?  What is policy?  Is there a relationship between the two?  What is it?

Development  What is development?  What is its relationship to the Global South?  Does it affect me? Or is it merely an “object of study”?  Why should I be interested?

Global South: The Concept  Focuses on processes and not on regions  Processes which lie beneath phenomena such as exclusion, immiserization, poverty, inequality etc. which are evident in all regions  The premise of the Global South perspective is that these phenomena visible everywhere and are caused by similar factors – some of which are global, some local, but share some commonalities