Ein Jahr bevor die Frist zur Erreichung der Millenniums-Entwicklungsziele im Jahr 2015 abläuft, bietet der Welthunger-Index (WHI) einen facettenreichen Überblick über die Verbreitung des Hungers und trägt neue Erkenntnisse darüber in die weltweite Debatte, wie Hunger und Mangelernährung verringert werden können. Betrachtet man die Entwicklungsländer als Gruppe, so hat sich die Hungersituation dort seit 1990 verbessert. Dem WHI 2014 zufolge ist seitdem ein Rückgang um 39 Prozent zu verzeichnen.

Southern African Agriculture and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Analysis examines the food security threats facing eight of the countries that make up southern Africa — Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe — and explores how climate change will increase the efforts needed to achieve sustainable food security throughout the region. Southern Africa’s population is expected to grow at least through mid-century. The region will also see income growth.

À l’aube de l’ère post-2015 des Objectifs de Développement Durable (odd), le monde est Confronté à de nombreux problèmes apparemment insolubles. La malnutrition ne devrait pas en faire partie. Les pays déterminés à faire des progrès rapides dans la réduction de la malnutrition peuvent y parvenir, et les incitations à améliorer la nutrition sont fortes. Une bonne nutrition constitue un fondement essentiel du développement humain, primordial pour la réalisation de tout notre potentiel.

AS DISCUSSED IN CHAPTER 1, SETTING TARGETS IS ONE MANIFESTATION OF POLITICAL COMMITMENT. COUNTRIES HAVE ALREADY MADE A SERIES OF COMMITMENTS TO ATTAIN global nutrition targets by 2025 (Panel 2.1). For maternal, infant, and young child nutrition, the 2012 World Health Assembly (WHA) set six targets for 2025. The Global Nutrition Report tracks five of these.1 The WHA also agreed on nine noncommunicable disease (NCD) targets, one of which—“Halt the rise in diabetes and obesity”—is tracked in this report via three indicators.

The report covers a country assessment of Lesotho"s energy sector, with emphasis on renewable energy. Chapter 1 introduces the energy sector in Lesotho with a coordinative depiction of the sector stakeholders, a policy and legal framework brief and an elaborate energy profile. The second chapter covers a problem analysis of the sector shedding a light on how the problems affect the different gender groups in the rural areas. It also covers some propagating factors facing the sector.

Lesotho is prone to a number of key environmental stresses mainly drought, land degradation, desertification and loss of biodiversity. With a soaring unemployment rate estimated at over 60% and scarcity in natural resources, the effects of climate change are due to become more unbearable. Lesotho"s National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA) process identified and prioritised the eleven adaptation activities which will be implemented in the various vulnerability zones.

Regional climate change projections for southern Africa indicate that global warming is likely to lead to greater increases in annual mean temperatures than the global average. This means increasing rainfall intensities, decreasing frequencies of low intensity (soft soaking) rainfall and longer dry periods between rainfall events, resulting in more severe droughts, floods and heatwaves, which will, in turn, lead to greater food insecurity in the region. This paper assesses the water-energy nexus in southern Africa in the context of climate change.

This background note, published by the Overseas Development Institute, provides an overview of the potential risks and vulnerabilities that face the water sector due to climate change. It also summarises of some of the adaptive strategies, targeting both supply and demand of water, being employed across various sectors in the developing world and offers suggestions going forward. It concludes by assessing how current knowledge of climate change can help inform future planning of water sector interventions.