News Overview

BY JESSICA LEIGHT AND KYLE PICO Modern contraception and family planning have substantial health benefits, helping women to manage birth spacing and thus reducing maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity. However, access is limited in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including in sub-Saharan Africa. In Mozambique, the national unmet need for modern family planning was estimated at 23% in 2015.Among

Grain shipments increase out of Ukraine, potentially helping to ease global food prices (PBS News Hour) PBS Newshour produced a video discussing how President Zelensky on Thursday hosted Turkey’s President Erdogan and the UN Secretary-General Guterres, both architects of a deal last month that allows Ukraine to export food amid the war and a global food shortage. But has that

Liquid gold: The price of cooking oil (BBC)   BBC published a podcast about what rising vegetable oil prices mean for food businesses. Vegetable oil can make or break a food business. In the food industry, they rely on vegetable oil.  Senior research fellow David Laborde explained that since oil is a tenth of our calorie intake, making it the most

If you look at traffic in Nairobi or go to a market in many parts of Kenya, you might think that COVID-19 is no longer a major problem. Public spaces seem as crowded and bustling as ever. But has the country really, fully recovered from this crisis? In rural Kenya, the pandemic has posed serious problems whose impacts are

Falling global food and fuel costs offer poor countries little relief (Washington Post) Washington Post published an article on how costs are down from their peaks in the Ukraine war but are still up compared with last year. Pressure on commodity markets also eased after Wall Street speculators began selling their holdings in response to the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate increases,

Rural Bangladesh saw 22% increase in food insecurity during pandemic: IFPRI (The Daily Star)  The Daily Star published an article stating around 22.3 percent more rural Bangladeshi households reported food insecurity — 18 months after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic than pre-pandemic times, according to an IFPRI and Cornell University study that conducted three rounds of socioeconomic phone surveys in rural areas of Bangladesh

Crowded prices of instant noodles, Mentan men: manufacturers keep prices (CNBC Indonesia) CNBC Indonesia published an article stating that the Ministry of Agriculture (Kementan) asks the public and the food industry to continue to be alert to the potential for a global food crisis. IFPRI data (see IFPRI tool, Food & Fertilizer Export Restrictions Tracker) show that throughout June 2022,

Which countries are affected by the Ukraine crisis? (Data Indonesia) Data Indonesia published an article on how the war in Ukraine has affected other countries worldwide. The war between Russia and Ukraine had a huge impact on the economy, especially the supply of food. As a result of the war, Ukraine was forced to stop the export of several food