CONCEPT: Hunger

Hunger: It is the rare individual who has never felt the pangs of hunger at some point, between 'breakfast' and supper (or supper and 'breakfast'), during the recurrent 24-hour cycles of Earth Day. Feeling hungry, like feeling thirsty, is part of the human condition. It is the reason we routinely eat, or drink water. But the hunger that draws public attention is a significant threshold beyond that cycle; even though, unlike famine, it is generally individual-specific or household-specific, and more localized. 

Hunger does not necessarily result in a famine situation, even in areas where it is practically endemic. But all too periodically, still, famine sneaks in under the guise of such hunger -- even as alarm bells begin to ring. And then it 'breaks out' into a 'season' of extreme deprivation and death which --recognized as such by the humanitarian community due to a persisting food shortage over Time and across Space -- engulfs whole communities, regions of a country, or blocks of countries within particular 'regions' or geographical areas. 

CONCEPT: Ethics in Emergency and Disaster Management

As a concept, Ethics is derived from the Greek word ethikos (meaning 'arising from habit'). Ethikos in turn arose from an older Greek word ethos (which refers to the custom, character, disposition or core values of a given social entity -- which may range from the individual to the corporate group). Ethics is about conduct. Conduct, Herbert Spencer (1892: 10) pointed out, was the opposite of "purposeless actions"; which was straightforward enough, and yet sufficiently intriguing to catch thoughtful attention. But Spencer (1820-1903), whom we should all read these days, worried that attempts to see good conduct as an ethical ideal might degenerate into a tautology, equating it with a purposefulness and perfection of action. Perfection need not be the 'culminating' ideal, but here is the case he made:

"It is strange that a notion so abstract as that of perfection, or a certain ideal completeness of nature, should ever have been thought one from which a system of guidance can be evolved; as it was in a general way by Plato and more distinctly by Jonathan Edwardes. Perfection is synonymous with goodness in the highest degree; and hence to define good conduct in terms of perfection, is indirectly to define good conduct in terms of itself." (Spencer, 1892: 33)

He suggested that there was only one way out of this logjam -- the means-ends way. Thus: "...the notion of perfection like the notion of goodness can be framed only in relation to ends" (Spencer, 1892: 33). In the diverse fields of scientific and emergency management work, the concept of ethics pertains, certainly from the Spencerian perspective, to any or all dimensions of professional conduct in terms of its conformity with, threats to, or violations of, the highest value propositions of a given field of practice. 

For present purposes, then, ethics -- or more specifically, professional ethics -- refers to a code of acceptable conduct or practice on the part of an individual, group or corporate entity as guided by the highest normative principles or best traditions, or collective 'hopes', of a discipline or profession. Thus, Weber (1964: 129-130) points out, inter alia, that:

"From a sociological point of view an 'ethical' standard is one to which [people] attribute a certain type of value and which, by virtue of this belief, they treat as a valid norm governing their action. In this sense it can be spoken of as defining what is ethically good in the same way that action which is called beautiful is measured by aesthetic standards. It is possible for ethically normative beliefs of this kind to have a profound influence on action in the absence of any sort of external guarantee. This is often the case when the interests of others would be little affected by their violation."

Weber continued to say that 'ethical beliefs' could also be 'guaranteed' by religion, or firmly adhered to on account of the "disapproval of violations and the consequent boycott"; or by the probability of, or actual, legal action (Weber, 1964: 130).

The entire value-chain of humanitarian response and related emergency and disaster management work is in principle guided by implicit and explicit ethical standards. All these fall under the 'umbrella' goal of delivering "the greatest good for the greatest number" of people in actual or impending distress. A number of key concepts interrogated in the present series speak to certain elements of those standards. Among these concepts are: Climate Change, Contamination, Contingency, Deforestation, Disaster, Emergency, Entitlement, Famine, Hunger, Non-Refoulement, Pollution, Response, The Precautionary Principle and Triage.  

NOTE: The bulk of the above text is extracted, with some changes, from a longer discourse on ethics as a pivotal standard of scientific research, as referenced below. 

READ: "Ethics ~ The Apex Standard of Scientific Research..."

CONCEPT: Deforestation

Deforestation: This refers to the widespread and long-term loss of tree-cover generally and mapped forest-zones in particular. Deforestation is accelerating in many places around the world, largely due to growing human populations and the unrestrained use, and even plunder, of forest resources for household use and commercial purposes. 

Among these uses and purposes, as Sheila Reed (1992: 102-115) has pointed out, are: farming, livestock grazing, firewood collection and logging. With growing human populations, it is clear to see, home-building will plays an increasingly negative role in deforestation as well. 

Reed classifies deforestation as one of four forms of environmental hazards, with the other three being: environmental pollution, desertification and pest infestation. More concerning, of course, is the fact that large-scale or widespread deforestation is itself the cause of other actual or potential hazards and disasters. 

These observable consequences, and their conceivable second- and third-order effects, include: (a) landslides in areas where the soil is destabilized by the loss of its tree-cover, (b) drought, which often triggers famine, (c) famine, (d) desertification, (e) fires, resulting from the dryness which follows the loss of moisture previously preserved and protected by decades and centuries of tree-cover, and (f) 'severity of flooding' potentially exacerbated by greater sedimentation along river beds following the 'deforestation of watersheds'. 

Rather surprisingly, Reed (1992: 104) also asserts that "flooding is the most serious side effect of deforestation". However, this may be true only in the 'short-term'. In the long-run, it is instead the risk of desertification (and the associated loss of farmland and water reservoirs), above all else, that should worry conservationists and food security professionals. 

READ: Mauri Yambo (2008) "The Mau Water Tower"
READ: Mauri Yambo (2009) "Deforestation Threatens the Family Free"
READ: Mauri Yambo (2009) "Kenya: The Shamba System and Deforestation"

CONCEPT: Famine

Famine: This refers to widespread and systemic hunger, or more particularly starvation, that arises from acute and persisting food shortages in an area or a population. It is "the most severe and visible form of hunger" (Barbour and Dudley, 1995: 12). The main causes of famine have historically been such natural factors as drought, floods and related crop failures. However, as the two authors and others have argued, famine, wherever it occurs, has more recently become, primarily, a human-caused emergency or disaster due to poor or inefficient distribution by governments, or "intentional starvation" by warlords (Barbour and Dudley, 1995: 12-13) -- or members of the "political class". 

Clearly, the problem does not lie simply in poor distribution modalities (and the weak logistical infrastructure that helps to explain them) and deliberate (or neglectful) starvation, but also and perhaps more directly in the incompetence and lack of foresight by those assigned the tasks. Foresight here includes the financially and administratively complicated, and confounding, idea of strategic [food] reserves. 

As we see under the concept of Entitlement, Sen strongly suggests that entitlement is a crucial factor in shielding some from famine, while exposing others (those without adequate amounts of it) to famine's (or starvation's) full effects. That is, those with inadequate entitlement to food, which is always in principle available from a wide array of local and global sources. The global community is not, certainly not yet, short of food.

CONCEPT: Entitlement

Entitlement (or Food Entitlement): Amartya Sen introduced the concept of entitlement into conversations about food scarcity and famine. He pointed out that people suffer famine not because of an absolute scarcity of food, but because of their lack of entitlement to it. In essence, vulnerability to famine is crucially a function of one's relative entitlement to food. 

In his book titled Poverty and Famines, Sen suggested four (clearly unequal) options for gaining access to food: (a) direct production, (b) food procurement via market exchange, (c) food donations or gifts, and (d) working in food-for-work schemes (see also Walker, 1989: 90). Emphasizing the pivotal role that entitlement plays during famine outbreaks, Sen (1981: 1) argued at the very beginning of his book that "Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough food to eat." This proposition has spawned a considerable amount of argumentation, systematic review and empirical investigation.

Buchanan-Smith and Davies (1995: 3), for example, concur with Sen that the search for workable solutions to famine outbreaks must shift attention to the demand-side of food access -- that is, from "food availability decline (FAD) to food entitlement decline (FED)". They add, however, that even Sen's solution requires refinement anchored on more recent empirical evidence from Africa. That evidence suggests that epidemic diseases kill more people than starvation per se. This suggests that the factor of universal health cover, or entitlement/access to comprehensive health services, must be brought in through robust public policy measures.

Moreover, they argue, economist Sen's preoccupation with market exchange masks the role that "a wider bundle of entitlements" can play -- incorporating "investments, stores and claims", as well as insurance and sale of assets; even though these can in turn attract more mouths, or the unwanted attention of powerful 'claimants' to the private property of the less powerful. 

In addition to (and perhaps above) all that, conflict and war have become a major and stubborn cause of famine across Africa (Buchanan-Smith and Davies, 1995: 3-4). Their effects pose a serious challenge to Sen's entitlement meme. Perhaps we should see how we incorporate peace into the basket of entitlements -- or an entitlement equation. 

But, to be fair to Sen, he did concede that not having enough food to eat may in fact be the result of there being not enough to go around in the first place. His point was that the actual linkages must be empirically investigated, not simply assumed. Subsequent investigations in that direction are most likely the reason that conflicts (including those involving terrorism), war, epidemic outbreaks and  "a winder bundle of entitlements" have more recently assumed the significance they have as explanations for starvation and famine -- in Africa and elsewhere.  The idea of entitlement has clearly morphed. To what extent, one may ask, are epidemic outbreaks also a function of entitlement?

[For an account of certain critiques of Sen's entitlement theory, read Stephen Devereux's 2001 paper titled "Sen's Entitlement Approach: Critiques and Counter-Critiques"]