Reports of land grabbing from various parts of the world continue to come in: land grabbing for agriculture to produce food, feed, biofuels and other industrial products; “green grabbing” or land grabbing for environmental ends; and water grabbing for the irrigation of large-scale monocultures, hydroelectricity and other corporate uses. Understanding contemporary land grabs requires grasping the changing context in which they occur: the emergence of “flex crops”, the rise of BRICS and middle-income countries, and the revalued role of nation-states.

The idea of using history to shed light on the present has significant and growing support within the humanitarian community, but remains the exception rather than the rule.

This HPG Working Paper provides an introduction to the emergence of the international humanitarian system and the factors that have shaped its evolution. It argues that greater knowledge of the system’s past will help practitioners and policy-makers think through today’s challenges and will contribute to a more effective platform for future reforms.

Despite some recent success in winding down decades-long negotiations with rebel groups, achieving peace with the country’s biggest insurgency, in Mindanao, requires both new energy and fresh thinking.

Updated data reveals almost 870 million people were undernourished in 2010-2012; the vast majority of them live in developing countries.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Is there a gender difference in the cholera disease burden in Sierra Leone?

A UNHCR report says that more people are refugees or internally displaced than at any time since 1994, with the crisis in Syria having emerged as a major factor.

Climate change poses a real risk to the future of farming and food security in southern Africa. Crop yields in the region, especially for staples (e.g. maize), are already low: about 35% less than the global average. In the past 10 years, several climate change research studies (Gbetibouo and Hassan, 2005; Fischer et al., 2005; Abraha and Savage, 2006; Liu et al., 2008; Thornton et al., 2011) have been commissioned to assess the impacts of climate change on food security, agriculture and natural resources development.

The war in Blue Nile state has had a horrible impact, with about a third of the state’s population in need of humanitarian assistance, including some 150,000 refugees and approximately 200,000 IDPs.

Measures must be taken to ensure that UN Women's Protection Advisors follow recognized guidelines on researching, documenting and monitoring sexual violence in emergencies.