Comments

Hi Paul, Thanks for the comment and thank you for the suggestion. My wife has just mentioned to me it was a great movie too apparently. Terence

Thanks for this post Andrea - it does a great job of setting out very clearly some of the key issues and challenges and I particularly appreciate the reference to some really important lessons learned through the Kula and ECF experiences. As with most things, it's really important that donors and others working in this space have a detailed understanding of what the private sector environment is in each country. As this work (and other related activities go forward) I would hope to see 2 things emerge. One is, as you flag in the title of this blog, a coordinated approach between ADB, IFC, AusAID (and others?) based on information sharing, environmental enabling and a commitment to reducing everyone's transaction costs (not just those of donors) and the other is appropriate recognition given to the place, needs and realities faced by those who populate the private sector(s) of the region rather than an overemphasis being placed on external 'big' businesses who have the attraction of (possibly) being able to operate 'to scale'.

This rise in obesity in developing countries is certainly worthy of closer examination. I think it is fair criticism to say that this is not just the middle class and rich in those countries. I suspect that part of the rise may have a correlation to urbanisation and in particular to the growth in urban slums. As you mention, it is these people who lack access to nutritious food and often rely on cheap food of low quality. It may be that we need to do more with the private sector to make available low cost nutritious food in these environments rather than promoting their highly refined, high calorie, low nutrient products.

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This looks like an op-ed piece for a major newspaper. Highly entertaining and astute.

Food is very important for human being, but it doesn't mean any type of food, mostly you will see in the middle class of below poverty line that people don't have food for the last two or three days totally depends on water. Most of the people die not because of food, but lack of nutrition.

Thanks for this great review: I look forward to reading MMMM. A good novel on the havoc caused by political interference is Paul Torday's "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen". The film version made a couple of years ago was OK, but the book is wittier and wiser. Well worth reading.

To have a better life and a better world is to fight corruption for everyone and all beneficiaries for resources in the land, not some individuals who think of themselves. A honest and faithful servant who can commit his/her time like Sam Koim is the best thing a person can do for the people of that nation. Wish we had more like him.

Thanks Ian for an interesting post on an important issue. One point I'd like to add is that the idea that the rich are the 'fat' ones because they are eating too much while the poor are under-nourished is an overly simplistic representation of reality. The relationship between nutritional status, health and poverty is complex. For example, obesity is a significant issue amongst many poor, urban households across the world (as is micronutrient deficiency). One of the reasons for this is the cheapest foods are the highly-refined, high-calorie, low-nutrient type that fill people up quickly. Also, it is possible to find in the same household an overweight mother with an under-nourished child. So the 'starved vs stuffed' dichotomy doesn't work. It seems to me that what is an issue of international justice is that all people, everywhere are able to eat nutritious foods. As you argue, this is most definitely about taking concerted action against undernutrition. But it is also about ensuring poor people live in environments that make nutritious food choices accessible and affordable, and that political and food-corporatation leaders make decisions to eradicate malnutrition in all its forms, across the world.

Thankyou for fighting corruption Sir.

Thanks Ashlee, And thanks for the Tidwell suggestion. I can imagine great travel writing / memoir around aid work. Interestingly I read "Emergency Sex..." and was kind of irritated by it. It seemed wrong to focus so much on their (the authors') own hardships amidst the much greater sorrows of the people in the countries they were working. And all the UN bashing bugged me for being unaccompanied by any real analysis of why the UN was that way. Yet oddly enough MMMM, which is more analytic, but also still mostly about the travails of aid workers not aid recipients, didn't bug me at all. Perhaps because it was fiction? Or possibly because I was just generally annoyed with all the UN bashing going on at the time I read ES? Or maybe J. just does a better job of getting the tone right? I confess I'm not sure. One thing I'll say in favour of MMMM is it's easy reading and the pages kept turning, which is why it overtook all the other books on my "really must read" list.

Thanks for the review Terence. MMMM is on my Kindle wish list so I can download it when I have a connection.