By the summer of 2008, the price of rice had increased five times from the average price in 2005. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

The following post is from One Table, a Mercy Corps campaign to fight world hunger by investing in the world's women.

Today almost a billion people worldwide are unable to buy or grow enough food to avoid malnutrition. That's 120 million more than were hungry in 2006.

What happened? Basically, the world saw dramatic spikes in food prices. But there were many underlying causes of what's known as the global food crisis:

• Drought and other climate-related problems that resulted in smaller harvests
• Changing diets — rise of the middle class in India and China and an increased demand for food, especially meat, which requires large amounts of grain to raise
• Diversion of crops from food production to the production of biofuels
• High fuel prices during 2008 — if it costs more to transport food, prices go up
• Declining investments in agricultural productivity — total agriculture development aid to poor countries plunged from $8 billion in 1984 to $3.4 billion in 2004. At the same time, the developing world's cities have been ballooning with people who do not grow any of their food
• Export bans and restrictions last year in several major grain-producing countries like China as governments sought to lower food prices for their own citizens, with the result of reducing the global supply on hand.

While food prices have come down from their highs of 2008, they remain substantially above historic levels. Many economists feel this trend, which most severely affects those who can least afford it, is likely to continue for some time.

The economic, health and societal costs of the global food crisis have been severe. One of the first things Mercy Corps did to figure out how and where to direct our efforts was to survey the communities where we work. We discovered that within communities Mercy Corps serves, roughly 70 percent of income is spent on food, and 80 percent of the population had been affected by rising food prices over the past year. The survey also confirmed something we already suspected: that families were coping with higher prices by eating fewer meals, selling off household belongings, going into debt and removing children from school so that they can work.

In addition to being a record year for food prices, it's also been a record year for our food security team, allowing Mercy Corps to aggressively respond to this crisis. We now have 17 programs in 13 countries designed specifically to respond to this on-going problem. Through support from donors including USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Gap Foundation, the Hunger Site, and private individuals, our Food Crisis Response employs a strategy designed to ensure that the groundwork for increased prosperity in the future is laid — even while addressing the immediate problem of accessing sufficient food.

Food distributions, much of which are specifically targeted to improve child nutrition, are taking place in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, in the Central African Republic, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Nepal, Niger, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Uganda and again Zimbabwe, Mercy Corps is helping hungry households to access food by providing employment opportunities, agricultural training and inputs (such as seeds and tools), and helping people establish and grow small businesses.

Combined, these programs are reaching almost 1.5 million individuals who have been directly impacted by higher food prices. Overall, Mercy Corps’ Crisis Response will lead to a sustainable increase in income for these people, leading in turn to greater food security over the long-term.

Displaced Tamil civilians fleeing their homes in north-eastern Sri Lanka, January 2009. Photo: trokilinochchi (flickr)

When the fighting ends, it's going to take a lot to rebuild the economy in Sri Lanka's war-ravaged northeast. Death, lost livelihoods and displacement — more than 200,000 people in the last few months — have become commonplace over the course of the island's 25-year civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, otherwise known as the LTTE or simply "the Tigers."

Fishing and agriculture — the region's predominant economic sectors — have been hit the hardest. A lot of Sri Lanka's food — specifically rice, vegetables and fruit — used to be grown there. But with the war, not even the population can live off what's produced locally. The World Food Program, referring to the formerly Tiger-held areas in the north, has said "the entire population of the Vanni is facing a food crisis due to continuous displacement, crop failure and recent floods."

Independent journalists aren't allowed into this region, so it's hard to get a good picture of the current state of the economy there. To get a little perspective I spoke with Gretchen Ansorge, a Mercy Corps program officer who worked in Trincomalee, a government-controlled district in a contested part of northeastern Sri Lanka, shortly after the 2004 tsunami. I asked her about the effects of the war on the economy:

The Tamil-controlled area didn’t have very much cross-border trade. These were remote areas that were difficult to travel to and from, and mostly all dependent on subsistence farming. I’m guessing that because these people have lost their plots of land due to displacements, don’t have access to other markets, and aren’t able to get out to sea and fish, this is probably having a strong effect on the economy in the former LTTE-controlled areas. Especially because Sri Lankans are largely dependent on fish as a staple. In the northeast, market linkages to other places weren’t as robust as in other regions, and so they had more limited access to goods outside of what they produced.

So what and how long is it going to take to rebuild the economy in the devastated northeast? Some say it could take up to two years for IDPs to even return to their homes. Families will require food assistance for a while, and Sri Lanka's agriculture and fishing industries will take time to recover. Some aid agencies already have plans for post-conflict rebuilding. The World Bank, for example, plans to rehabilitate wartime damage to soil, irrigation systems, rural roads, water and farms.

Mercy Corps' Ansorge, however, says the pressing question is how the government will respond. After years of virtually no infrastructure or financial support in the northeast from either the Tigers or the Sri Lankan government, these things will be essential for post-war rehabilitation:

More than anything, Tamils want a responsive government. Now that the Sri Lankan government has virtually succeeded in regaining control of the entire country, this is one of those moments when they can either choose to respond to these displacements and show their commitment to improving conditions in the majority-Tamil areas — by providing funding to the region and building infrastructure — or not.

Even after this war comes to a definitive end, it will be years before the northeast can wean itself off international aid and once again contribute to Sri Lanka's economic growth.

Photo: Sun Pictures / Lakshman (flickr)

Ever heard of a 13-year-old bank manager?

It’s not an uncommon sight at the Children’s Development Bank (CDB), a unique initiative by the Delhi-based NGO Butterflies that helps street children help themselves. CDB, founded in Delhi in 2001, offers street and working children the opportunity to invest in a different lifestyle.

Fear of theft and lack of future planning have often led working children to spend what little they earn on short-term pleasures, such as cigarettes or cinema tickets. By providing a safe place to hold money, however, CDB encourages them to start a savings habit.

CDB is particularly innovative in the way it is run. It works as a cooperative, in which children are both the owners and decision makers. Rules, membership standards and loan criteria are set by members who are all between the ages of eight and 18. The idea is for kids to "put money aside for themselves without worry that it will be lost or stolen, save for things that they need or want, such as clothes, (and) plan to improve themselves, by saving for education and training."

CDB now boasts more than 8,250 members and operates in 12 locations, including branches in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Fuel prices have risen 40 percent since the start of the year.

Skyrocketing fuel prices make people angry. How angry you ask?

• Truck drivers in Spain started an indefinite strike on Monday, threatening to bring the entire country to a standstill. A growing number of gas stations have reported to have run out of fuel as a result, and supplies of fresh food are running low.
• From Portugal to Italy, commercial fishermen have protested rising fuel prices by blockading ports and refineries
• Last Thursday, more than 500 motorcyclists staged a “go-slow” demonstration outside Manchester, UK.
• Over in Asia, angry Indian consumers burned tires and blocked traffic after the government raised fuel prices. The protests shut down schools and businesses in West Bengal State.
• In Hong Kong, 500 buses and trucks colluded to bring traffic to a standstill in the central city.
• Enraged by the government’s recent 41-percent fuel price hike, Malaysians have planned a nationwide strike and a major demonstration in Kuala Lumpur on July 12.
• Truck drivers in Thailand are threatening to wreak traffic-havoc next week by clogging the roads with 400,000 trucks.
• In South Korea, truck drivers threatened to strike on Monday, ignoring the $10.2 billion government aid package designed to cushion the impact of soaring fuel prices.

What other angry reactions have you heard about?