On October 18, the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center held a discussion entitled, “Food and Water Security and Governance in Asia,” with Dr. Uma Lele, former World Bank economist and member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Global Water Partnership.
Download Uma Lele’s presentation (PDF)
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, nearly 850 million people in the world were food insecure in 2006 to 2008, and South Asia was home to over one third of this population. Given large and growing populations and limited resources, the Asia-Pacific region faces unparalleled challenges of food security. The number of food insecure people in China has dropped dramatically due to investment in agricultural development. While the Green Revolution in South Asia eliminated frequent food shortages and famines that plagued the region and made headlines in past decades, recent population and income growth are proving past approaches to be insufficient in addressing an increasingly complex problem of food and water insecurity. How are governments addressing the large-scale regional challenges? What role is the private sector playing in food and water security? Dr. Lele addressed these and other issues in her discussion.
A discussion with
Dr. Uma Lele
Former World Bank Economist and Independent Scholar
Moderated by
Shuja Nawaz
Director, South Asia Center
Atlantic Council
Dr. Uma Lele is an independent scholar, and recognized developmental economist with over thirty years of experience at the World Bank. She co-chaired a Taskforce of the China Council for International Cooperation and Development (CCICED) on Forests and Grasslands between 2000 and 2002. After leaving services of the World Bank in 2005, she has written on a variety of issues including health systems, environment, global public goods, and international aid. She was a panel member of the first Independent External Evaluation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and has served on the advisory committees of a number of UN organizations. She is a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Global Water Partnership, and a fellow of the American Agricultural and Applied Economic Association, and India’s National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. She works on issues related to food and agriculture in several countries, including China and India. To read more, please click here [www.umalele.org].