Poverty, not scarcity of food is the cause of hunger. The current world trade order is skewed against the interests of the needy. Change is required at all levels and small-scale farms matter most.

An article on the first part of Practical Actions European speaker tour on climate change written by Nicholas Milton.

How does planting trees become a political gesture? Biologist and political activist Wangari Maathai of Kenya received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for promoting sustainable development, democracy and peace, primarily through the Green Belt Movement she founded in 1977 with the goal of planting trees throughout Kenya. On a trip to sacred Tumutumu Hill this past summer, Daniela Vrbová from Czech Radio 6 found that Wangari Maathai’s legacy continues to have an influence on the lives of Kenyans even a year after her death.

On 2 May 2012 the European Commission met to discuss the European biofuel policy, more specifically the problematic issue of high carbon emissions connected to indirect land use change (ILUC). More than 100 NGOs from all over the world, including Glopolis, signed an open letter to the European commissioners calling for the EU to put measures into place to avert the negative impacts biofuel policies have on climate change.

European policies in support of biofuels have unfortunate consequences – western firms are taking over land in Africa to cultivate crops such as jatropha, essentially destroying local agriculture in the process. “These firms are creating a very poor impression of western countries in the eyes of Africans. People are alarmed over what could happen next,” says Francis Namu Njoka, a Kenyan biofuel and biomass expert.

Poverty refers not only to one’s economic situation, but also to other factors that influence life. Especially in the past years the term “energy poverty” has become more common.

In recent years African countries have enjoyed interest from abroad, thanks in part to a great amount of available land apparently ideal for cultivating crops for providing food security and for the production of biofuels.

Livestock is a sector on the move. Population in the global South are increasingly shifting consumption towards meat and dairy products. This growing demand is the main trigger of the so-called „livestock revolution“ , an important opportunity for pro-poor growth. Yet, the dairy sector on which this article focusesis the one often reported to be undermined by Europeanmilk powder exports. At the moment of reforming the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), what is the situation and where are we heading to?

Small steps in the Czech Republic towards sustainable agricultural production and consumption. 

On April 18th Columbian delegation composed of trade-unionists and members of human-rights organizations will commence a three-day visit of Prague. Glopolis has organized meetings for the delegation’s members with representatives in the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Industry and Trade, and Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions. The delegates will also speak at Charles University in Prague and in Czech media.

According to the very old saying, attributed to Lao Tseu [1], „If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime“. But what if this man, or actually this woman, is simply prevented access to the pond or river?

An Executive Summary of a Shadow Report on Official Development Assistance - A Retrospect of Five Years issued by FoRS - The Czech Forum for Development Cooperation in September 2010.

An article on current discussion of climate and energy policy in Finland.

All those who go to vote today and tomorrow will help decide many important matters facing the country in the near future. And yet, there is a set of serious questions that will remain virtually untouched by the elections. These include critical international problems and many issues for which there is a consensus on the political scene.

The article insists on the importance of participation of farmer organizations from developing countries in the definition of European aid to agriculture. It describes the action lead by a European group of NGOS in asking Eva Joly, chair of the European Parliament´s Development Committee for increased dialogue with Southern civil society.

The representatives of 193 countries that negotiated for two weeks in Copenhagen on climate change did not produce good news for the rest of the world. 

Governments are therefore sounding the alarms. Twenty Member States are even coming to the Council with a joint declaration on an approach to the fight against the milk crisis.

Numerous foreign commentators have rated the recently concluded Czech presidency of the Council of the European Union as not overly successful. Tony Barber from the Financial Times wrote that the Czech presidency will soon be forgotten.

Climate change represents a significant risk to the global economy. Published this year in May, the Human Impact Report uses available facts and expert projections to claim that climate change is responsible each year for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people; furthermore, hundreds of millions more inhabitants of the planet are seriously threatened, and annual economic losses amount to 125 billion dollars.[1]

One of the main priorities of the Czech presidency was the financial crisis and the pursuit of effective solutions. The economic and financial department of Glopolis focused efforts on making sure that the economic priorities of the Czech presidency took the needs of developing countries into greater account.

On a Sunday morning of June, a couple hundred of people walked the streets of Prague against child hunger, in solidarity with other 330,000 people across the planet. Dying of hunger in the 21st century, which is the case of a young child every six seconds, is no less than a violation of human rights.

In his article „A summit to help steady the EU“ Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer outlined indicators of success for the European Council meeting last week. However, while that meeting somewhat salvaged the dented image of the Czech Presidency, it did little to deliver on the demands that Glopolis has made in favour of the world’s poor.

Article based on the keynote speech of Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, to the conference “The food crisis, one year on. How to achieve food security for all?” organized by Glopolis and Heinrich Boll Stiftung on March 4th, 2009.

An interview of Klara Bratova, an external redactor of Český rozhlas 6 with the participant of the conference The global food crisis, one year on. How to achieve food security for all? Daniel de la Torre Ugarte, Professor and Associate Director of Agricultural Policy and Analysis Center of the University of Tennessee about current situation on food security.