Famine & Poverty and Famines Essay Example for Free

Famine Poverty and Famines Essay The phenomenon of famine has been widely described and analyzed in socio-political literature. The topic has been considered a controversial one in terms of its definition and its definitive features. In a recent revision of the concept of famine, â€Å"Poverty and Famines,† Amartya Sen retains part of classical vision on famine offered by Malthus, distinguishing â€Å"regular starvation,† which is a â€Å"normal feature in many parts of the world,† from â€Å"violent  outbursts of famine,† a â€Å"particularly virulent form of [starvation] causing widespread death† (Sen, 38-39). USAID defines famine as â€Å"a catastrophic food crisis that results in widespread acute malnutrition and mass mortality† (USAID, 2002).   Proper definition of famine matters not only in terms of labeling an event after the fact, but also in terms of how humanitarian organizations and governments respond to crises as they are happening. Maxwell points out that this is in large part because of the emotional weight the term â€Å"famine† has come to carry (Maxwell, 49). Humanitarian workers spent a considerable amount of time arguing about whether or not to call the 2002-2003 crisis in Ethiopia, ostensibly affecting over 13 million people, a famine. Calling it a famine would have stepped up the international response, but it might also be perceived as â€Å"crying wolf,† which would have a detrimental effect on organizations’ abilities to obtain resources for emergency responses in the long run. Aid agencies want to avoid using the term â€Å"famine† too often because they worry about â€Å"compassion fatigue† or â€Å"donor fatigue† – essentially that donors will be less likely to support emergency efforts if there are too many emergencies. There are also political implications for using the term â€Å"famine,† as can be seen in the case of the 2005 crisis in Niger, which President Mamadou Tandja insisted was a fabrication of relief agencies to obtain more funding (Sengupta, 2005). Aid agencies likewise were reluctant to apply the term famine, and referred instead to â€Å"pockets of severe malnutrition,† in part because they didn’t want to alienate Tandja (Sengupta, 2005). The general discussion in literature indicates that number of deaths, scale, intensity and time frame were main considerations for when to call something a famine. There also is a consensus that lack of access to food had to be the main problem, to distinguish a famine from other types of humanitarian crises. For instance, the 1984/85 famine in Ethiopia was unanimously considered a famine. Iraq in the 1990s was not, mainly because â€Å"the time-frame was too long for a famine and many deaths were the result of a health crisis, not calorie-related† (IDS, 3). Ethiopia in 1999/2000 was probably a famine, but Malawi in 2002 â€Å"represented a famine-threat, rather than a true famine† because â€Å"too few people died† (IDS, 3). In the latter case, the mortality was estimated between 500 and 3,000, and estimates were complicated by the prevalence of HIV/AIDS; thus, it was difficult to attribute deaths specifically to hunger and hunger-related diseases. WORKS CITED Institute of Development Studies. Report on Operational Definition of Famine Workshop. Sussex, UK: Institute of Development Studies, March 14, 2003 Maxwell, D.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"Why do famines persist? A brief review of Ethiopia 1999-2000.† IDS Bulletin, 33 (4), 48-54, 2002 Sen, A. Poverty and famines: An essay on entitlement and deprivation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981 Sengupta, K. â€Å"President Tandja: ‘The people of Niger look well fed, as you can see.† The Independent, August 10, 2005 United States Agency for International Development. USAID background paper: Famine. Washington, DC: USAID, 2002. Retrieved July 8, 2009, from http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2002/02fs_famine.html

OVER PAID ATHLETES Essay -- essays research papers

Argument I believe professional athletes are overpaid. These athletes are making millions of dollars to have fun and play. They are getting paid to do what elementary kids do every day. Professional athletes are should be paid about sixty to ninety thousand a year. The reason I say this much is because they are at a professional level and have worked hard to get to that status. In theory, professional athletes are overpaid because the U.S. is more focused on entertainment value in today’s society, rather than important issues like employment or cancer. First, the commissioner for all the sports should lower all of the salary caps for the players. Next, all of the athletes should be placed on a merit system. Meaning if the athlete is making 12 million dollars and there performance or statistics (such as shooting percentage, rebounding, or rushing yards), decrease by 20% or more, that athlete should have a pay cut. Also, when the athlete performs and does what he or she was employed to d o, the athlete should be considered for a raise. Then, once this has been accomplished, the athlete will have worked for his paycheck and appreciate the hard work and dedication that he or she has committed. One summer in July in the city of Copperas Cove, Texas, I was just getting off of my $5.65 an hour job at Blockbuster Video. I sat down to watch television with my niece. I got the remote and turned the TV to ESPN. I watched 18-year old Lebron James accepts a 90 million dollar contract fr...

Junior Officers Essay

This result appeared to be the same with the statistical results for the data set of all samples combined. The deviation was the item Human Resource Focus, Item 5, which appeared to be not correlated with Leadership, Item 1. There could be logical reasons why such a result, but we cannot at this stage, extrapolate without first conducting the same test for the Leaders Group. A. 3. The Pearson Correlation Matrix for the Leaders Group For the Leaders Group, Leadership, Item 1, is not correlated at all, ALL from Strategic Planning, Item 2 to Business Results, Item 7 as shown by Table 3. Table 3. Excerpt from the Correlation Matrix for the Leaders Group Leadership, Item 1 Strategic Planning, Item 2 0. 371 0. 413 Customer And Market Focus, Item 3 0. 164 0. 726 Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management, Item 4 0. 753 0. 051 Human Resource Focus, Item 5 0. 715 0. 071 Process Management, Item 6 0. 247 0. 594 Business Results, Item 7 0. 524 0. 227 Cell Contents: Pearson correlation p-Value The results were revealing on two counts. First, it told us that the correlation trend shown by the Combined Data Samples of the Others Group and the Leaders Group was mainly due to the effect of the Others Group given its bigger sample size, 37 respondents compared to the Leaders Group, 7 respondents. This is manifest in that the correlation test for the Others Group showed correlation between Leadership, Item 1, and other items except in Customer and Market Focus, Item 3, which was possibly influenced by the results of the Leaders Group which showed no correlation between Leadership, Item 1, and the other items. Second, the results pointed to the contrast between the two groups being compared. There was a significant difference in perception between the Others Group and the Leaders Group. It should be noted that the Leaders Group, comprising, take note, the Senior Leaders, or specifically, the Senior Officers in the surveyed organization occupied the higher hierarchy and when we mentioned the Others Group, we are referring to leaders still, but leaders occupying the lower hierarchy, the Others Group comprising, take note, the Junior Leaders, or specifically the Junior Officers. It may argued that based on their respective position in the surveyed organization, ESGR there may be strong factors which create opposing views or that their perceptions could be affected by the imperatives, necessities, and the like and the nature of their respective positions being held in the organization. Whereas, for the Others Group, wherein Leadership, Item 1, was correlated with all the other items: Strategic Planning, Item 2; Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management, Item 4; Human Resource Focus, Item 5; Process Management, Item 6; and Business Results, Item 7; however, in the Leaders Group, its Leadership, Item 1, had NO significant correlation established with ALL the other items from Item 2 to Item 7. It could mean that the Others Group, mainly Junior Officers were more concerned with function which required them to be aware of all the aspects and details of the organization. It could be contended that Junior Officers were the implementers of the details of projects and operations hence, with Strategic Planning, Item 2 of the Baldrige Criteria, the Junior Officers were more concerned with examining how organizations develop objectives and action plans and how flexible the organization should be in case of situational changes in circumstance. Junior Officers are expected to be familiar with stock knowledge on the planning step and deployment to achieve objectives at the various stages of implementation. Chances are, they are the ones evaluating data from various reports and they are the ones making the progress reports and updates for the higher echelon officers. In other words it is possible that Junior Officers differed with the Senior Leaders in terms of data/details exposure, requiring the Junior Officers to pay more particular attention to the different aspects of the organization at the field or at the ground level. Other items such as Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Management, Item 4, could be interpreted as part of the functions of Junior Leadership and Junior Officers were more conscious of the procedures involved in handling voluminous data and information which needed sorting and which may require immediate and appropriate response. In Question 26, under the sub-category, Information and Knowledge Management, for example, in dealing with hardware and software reliability, we can expect that senior leadership not to be doing the actual testing of new software or hardware for that matter. It would thus be more the function of Junior Officers to test such new innovations. Due to the difference in focus and priorities between the Others Group and the Leaders Group as suggested by their diverging trend in the correlation test outcome, further tests had to be conducted to enable deeper probe into why such results occurred. How come?

Race-Based Political Smear Campaigns