Teachers participate in an activity called "Tree of Values" at the Bahia environmental education workshop.

Earlier this year, Brazilian journalist Herton Escobar traveled to Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago to see how CI and partner organizations are improving local livelihoods while increasing protection for one of the world’s most spectacular marine sites.

A Somali woman hands her malnourished child to a medical officer of the African Union Mission in Somalia, a regional peacekeeping mission operated by the African Union. (UN Photo by Stuart Price)

Things are not getting better in the Horn of Africa. In the nearly three months since I visited the region, the landscape has gotten drier, and people and animals have become more desperate for water and food. The forecast for fall rains is mixed at best, and even if the rains come in full force, the drought is so severe that they won’t provide lasting relief.

This is the second of a 2-part series of responses to questions you asked us about food aid — its complexities, and its implications on economic development and child health — in advance of World Food Day, which was Sunday. Paul Macek, World Vision’s senior director of food security and livelihoods team, continues answering your questions below.

A woman farms in Tanzania. (© Benjamin Drummond)
Before joining Conservation International, I spent 10 years at a nonprofit working to alleviate poverty and hunger around the world.

Rice farmer in Madagascar. (© Olivier Langrand)

To mark World Food Day, October 16, we asked you earlier this week to share your questions about food aid — its complexities, and its implications on economic development and child health. This is part 1 of a 2-part series of responses to those questions from Paul Macek, World Vision’s senior director of integrated food and nutrition.

When I was a little kid, my sister (who never ate her vegetables) used to wish aloud at the dinner table that she could send her broccoli to Africa, where the kids really need it.
At the time, I liked to think of myself as not quite so naive — I knew we couldn’t literally send our vegetables to Africa. It would taste really bad by the time it got there.
Yes, shipping leftovers probably isn’t a best practice in terms of humanitarian food aid. But what about food security? And malnutrition prevention and mitigation? And ready-to-use therapeutic food?