Hunger, poverty and food aid in Sub-Saharan Africa: Retrospect and potential

Frustrations and failures will continue to mount if we do not immediately summon the courage to revise the ways we think and take action-as well as maintaining essential services to support life and health … Saving hundreds of thousands … who are at risk of dying from malnutrition or infection is an immediate imperative. But it must be only one stage in the progress toward other activities, and one element in the truly comprehensive approach… The main intent of this paper is to explore aspects of the nature and evolution of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa with special reference to food and hunger and their interaction with macro-economic policy. An attempt is made to outline the overall context within which food aid needs to be used in order to have a greater developmental impact. Following an Introductory Section I, Section II provides a sketch map of how recession and lagging food production - with cyclical weather crises superimposed - affect the human condition of poor people. Section III reviews die interaction between "standard" IMF stabilization and World Bank structural adjustment strategies and poverty/hunger. Improvements in the design of stabilization and adjustment programmes, and of the inter-relationship with them of emergency programmes, can be identified. A number turn on the broadened and more innovative or catalytic use of food aid. Section IV reviews aspects of facing a continuing series of emergencies and of designing life support programmes to facilitate rehabilitation of the households directly affected as well as of the national economies. From this base it explores a series of elements in achieving renewed development. The concluding Section seeks to explore the strengths, limitations and potentials of food aid in the context set by the previous sections. The standard criticisms of food aid appear to be overstated and/or to relate to particular modalities or approaches rather than to anything intrinsic. A number of criteria for improving the effectiveness of food aid - especially in respect to rehabilitation, recovery and renewed development - are set out.     

1990年8月1日苍山4.4级地震

<正> 1990年8月1日凌晨04时44分许,山东苍山县境内发生4.4级(M_L)地震。苍山县、临沂市西部及枣庄市东部强烈有感,震感波及鲁南和苏北近二十个县市。这是近几年来苏鲁沿海交界地区发生的又一次令人注目的显著地震事件。这次地震发生于台站密度较大的区域微震台网之内,尤其苍山地震台(64型地震仪,放大倍数 V_0=8×10~4)距离震中仅约16km 左右,较完整地记录了这次地震的前震及余震序列,从而提供了较翔实的仪器记录资料。本文拟利用丰富的地震波实测资料,辅     

Post-disaster resettlement, development and change: a case study of the 1990 Manjil earthquake in Iran

Planned and involuntary resettlement after natural disasters has been a major policy in post-disaster reconstruction in developing countries over the past few decades. Studies show that resettlement can result in significant adverse impacts on the resettled population. Conversely, a well-planned and managed resettlement process can produce positive long-term development outcomes. This article presents the results of a case study undertaken 11 years after the 1990 Manjil earthquake in Iran. During the reconstruction period, a policy of involuntary planned resettlement was pursued extensively. The socioeconomic changes that occurred as a consequence of this policy of involuntary resettlement are analysed. Data were collected via a questionnaire survey that involved a sample of 194 relocated households (grouped into a settlement that later became a town). The paper shows that relocated families face difficult socioeconomic challenges after relocation and regrouping. This is especially true with respect to employment, income, the empowerment of women and lifestyle issues.     

The Health Effects of Earthquakes in the Mid-1990s

This paper gives an overview of the global pattern of casualties in earthquakes which occurred during the 30-month period from 1 September 1993 to 29 February 1996. It also describes some of the behavioural and logistical regularities associated with mortality and morbidity in these events. Of 83 earthquakes studied, there were casualties in 49. Lethal earthquakes occurred in rapid succession in Indonesia, China, Colombia and Iran. In the events studied, a disproportionate number of deaths and injuries occurred during the first six hours of the day and in earthquakes with magnitudes between 6.5 and 7.4. Ratios of death to injury varied markedly (though with some averages close to 1:3), as did the nature and causes of mortality and morbidity and the proportion of serious to slight injuries. As expected on the basis of previous knowledge, few problems were caused by post-earthquake illness and disease. Also, as expected, building collapse was the principal source of casualties: tsunamis, landslides, debris flows and bridge collapses were the main secondary causes. In addition, new findings are presented on the temporal sequence of casualty estimates after seismic disaster. In synthesis, though mortality in earthquakes may have been low in relation to long-term averages, the interval of time studied was probably typical of other periods in which seismic catastrophes were relatively limited in scope.     

江苏常熟—太仓5.1级地震的破裂特征及其可能的前兆机制

这次地震前震中附近地区的地震活动随时间呈波浪式起伏,形成了小震条带,出现了小震群;地下水(水位、水温)异常非常强烈;地形变和地磁异常也观测到了.分析发现:前兆不是沿断裂带分布,而主要是位于近震中(≤50km)的破裂面法线方向;震中附近的断裂没有穿过震中.这次地震看来不是沿原有断裂的错动,而是块体内产生新的错动,属于块断型地震,似可用IPE模式解释一些前兆现象.     

九十年代以来全球重大天气气候事件回顾

本文首先揭示了九十年代全球变暖背景下北半球中高纬度地区冬季的异常冷暖气候事件及其相应的环流形势。着重回顾了全球热浪、暴雨洪涝、大范围持续干旱及热带风暴等重大灾害性天气气候事件及其影响，并对其形成的可能原因进行了一些诊断分析。     

An Examination of the 1990-91 Famine in Sudan

Shortly before and during the harvest of 1990, a series of warnings were issued by concerned international and UN agencies that Sudan would experience a very poor harvest followed by an acute food shortage over the period 1990-91. The 1990 harvest was estimated to be similar to that obtained in 1984. After the very poor harvest in 1984, Sudan experienced a major famine during which deaths may have numbered in the hundreds of thousands. There were fears that this experience might be repeated in 1990 - 91. By the time of the subsequent 1991 harvest, it was clear to all that a severe food crisis had been experienced. There were severe shortages of water and food and very high malnutrition rates of children were noted by UNICEF across a wide range of areas. Despite these adverse indications, starvation deaths were probably numbered in thousands, rather than hundreds of thousands. Famine mortality, which may include deaths from famine associated disease, was similarly low. The initial predictions, it now seems, may have over-estimated famine mortality almost one hundred times. Several potential explanations of the over-estimate are examined. These include prediction errors, government and donor responses to the drought such as food aid and immunization, and traditional community and household level coping strategies in times of food shortage.     

华东井网十年回顾与展望

本文总结了1980-1990年华东地震地下水动态观测井网十年来在监测预报中的作用和效能;井网对地下水微动态信息反应的能力;在科学研究方面取得的成就,以及论文著作,获奖情况等.最后提出了今后观测预报研究的工作方向和展望.