Earlier today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C. to discuss the current food security issues in eastern Africa.
“What is happening in the Horn of Africa is the most severe humanitarian emergency in the world today,” Secretary Clinton said. Over 12 million residents of Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti are currently at risk of starvation. Compounding problems in Somalia, the only part of the continent in which famine has been declared, is the absence of central governance and the presence of a regional paramilitary organization hostile to Western organizations in the country.
Secretary Clinton is confident that increased financial assistance, in-country aid work, and policy tools can all be used effectively to end the short-term crisis and establish long-term governmental and agricultural self-sufficiency.
Click here to watch Secretary Clinton’s remarks and see trailer HERE.
Danielle Nierenberg, an expert on livestock and sustainability, currently serves as Project Director of State of World 2011 for the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental think tank. Her knowledge of factory farming and its global spread and sustainable agriculture has been cited widely in the New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and
other publications.
Danielle worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. She is currently traveling across Africa looking at innovations that are working to alleviate hunger and poverty and blogging everyday at Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet. She has a regular column with the Mail & Guardian, the Kansas City Star, and the Huffington Post and her writing was been featured in newspapers across Africa including the Cape Town Argus, the Zambia Daily Mail, Coast Week (Kenya), and other African publications. She holds an M.S. in agriculture, food, and environment from Tufts University and a B.A. in environmental policy from Monmouth College.
