Commenting on the rush to blame biofuels for the global food crisis, the UN's Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes has warned against "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." His ideas were echoed by Lennart Baage of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, who said, "It is important not to go to extremes."

In fact, there are a number of experts trying to dispel the myth that biofuels are the sole or primary force behind the unfolding global food crisis. As I have discussed previously on UN Dispatch, the processes that have caused the spike in food prices are numerous and complex (including increased demand, rising oil prices, the weak dollar, commodity speculation, trade distortions), and policymakers should avoid making a scapegoat out of biofuels simply because it is politically expedient.

The truth is that sound policy toward biofuels can be extremely beneficial for the developing world. Nobody has said that the shift to biofuels from fossil fuels has been perfectly executed, but you would be hard pressed to find an energy expert who says that the situation presented by fossil fuel reliance is a sustainable path. The initial move toward biofuels offers developing countries an opportunity to develop natural resources and infrastructure that will help lead away from oil addiction, with the significant environmental, economic and security benefits that implies. Policymakers have already learned many lessons about the "smart" and "dumb" ways to manage the production and sale of plant-based fuel, and with this experience leaders will be all the more prepared to deploy the next generation of biofuels (made from non-food plants and agricultural waste products), which will be even further dissociated with the limitations of the current generation.

John Holmes and Lennart Baage are right, managing food and energy requires a longer-term perspective and casting blame is counterproductive. The food crisis should be approached as a whole and responses must be measured. Thankfully, the UN is prepared to take a cautious approach, so at least on the international level, it seems unlikely that the world will throw the biofuels out with the bathwater.

Current UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has initiated immediate and sweeping responses to prevent dire impacts from rapidly escalating food prices. And former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is stressing the importance of long-term investment in agriculture, as part of a drive toward a second "green revolution" in Africa. He estimates that food production on the continent could be doubled or tripled through such a change. Unfortunately, this is made difficult as a result of such factors as drought and lack of property rights for farmers in many African countries. If these problems can be overcome, however, the African continent could quickly move simultaneously toward growing its own food and securing its economic, energy and environmental future.

I'd like to pull out and discuss one line in Mark Malan's latest entry: "The Secretary-General adds that the majority of the parties should state their agreement to the deployment of an integrated United Nations peacekeeping operation..." Majority consent. Isn't that what the UN had the last time it went into Somalia? As in, minus the major fighting faction? To me, the conditions and objectives specified in the report that Mark cites are essentially identical to those in spring 1993 when the UN last got badly burned in Somalia, except that the occupying force there this time--the Ethiopian army--is not nearly so careful or impartial in its use force or its political sentiments as was US-led UNITAF in winter 1992-93. The outside world keeps trying to build a modern state in this place that's never really had one. That absence didn't matter much until the West began worrying about "ungoverned spaces" as potential havens for terrorists. Well, news flash: it's a lot easier to raid an ungoverned space when you have intel on a terror cell there than it is to build and fund a whole state apparatus just to keep out the guys who want to build that cell.

As to Somalia being UNPK's final straw/bridge too far/barrel over the falls: too late, done that, gone there: Darfur.

Security Council countries took a turn at word interpretation yesterday, somewhat ambiguously invoking the need for "realism" in negotiations between Western Sahara and Morocco, which has occupied the desert territory since 1975. What this means in reality -- no pun intended -- is that outright independence is likely off the table for Western Sahara. The Security Council renewed the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force that has maintained a ceasefire there since 1991, but the Council's president in April, South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, objected to what he perceived as powerful countries' bias toward Morocco in the dispute.

"This council has made a mistake. They sent a wrong message to Morocco, thinking that they will always support Morocco," Kumalo told reporters after the vote, adding that he nevertheless voted in favor because he still held out hopes for the negotiations.

In a statement to the council after the vote, he said the reference to realism could set a precedent in other conflicts, such as that between Israelis and Palestinians, that the principle "might is right" would hold sway.

Kumalo also complained that the resolution drafted by France, Russia, Spain, Britain and the United States omitted any reference to human rights, a sensitive subject for Morocco. He said such an omission was a case of double standards.

I can't help but notice that Kumalo's examples conspicuously did not include Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe's faltering government has long benefited from South Africa's protection. If it is "realistic" to downplay the prospect of Western Saharan independence, then surely it is equally so to acknowledge the electoral defeat that even Zimbabwe seems ready to admit. For South Africa to continue to shield Mugabe, then, would represent an entirely unambiguous "case of double standards."

While the UN tackles the global food crisis, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour reminds us that marginalized groups must not be left out any efforts made, and the equality of food distribution and analysis of community needs must be ensured:

"More fundamentally, and for the more medium and longer term, the underlying inequalities and inabilities to access food must be addressed by a comprehensive solution. . . When we focus on those most in need, we must include not only the poorest but also those that are particularly vulnerable to discrimination on any other grounds, including gender, ethnicity, or disability."

She included that all voices within those communities, whether it be directly or through local organizations, must be heard.

I like this woman.

I have been reluctant to contribute to this conversation because I have so little background in the broader issues. I have for the past nine years worked exclusively in attempting to secure a just peace for Sudan and in improving humanitarian access to Sudan's immensely distressed populations. My efforts have nonetheless touched on issues that are obviously central to this broader discussion of peacekeeping, so I offer this very modest contribution, focusing exclusively on Darfur (the UN Mission in Sudan [UNMIS] peace support operation in southern Sudan, deployed following the January 2005 "Comprehensive Peace Agreement," is a complex topic in itself, and cannot be easily or unambiguously assessed; it is certainly not readily folded into the issues I see before us in Darfur).

Currently there are, according to the UN, more than 4.3 million conflict-affected civilians in Darfur, and perhaps another 1 million in eastern Chad, including not only 260,000 Darfuri refugees, but almost 200,000 Chadian Internally Displaced Persons, and hundreds of thousands of Chadian host families that have been severely affected by the spill-over from Darfur and Chad's many indigenous political, economic, and military problems.

There is no peace to keep in Darfur; and in eastern Chad the success of the European Union force (EUFOR) is far from clear, though it seems likely to provide significant security if the force is able to maintain its independence from longstanding French military presence, which has in the past supported the cruel regime of Idriss Déby. Even so, eastern Chad hardly has a peace to keep and in too many ways resembles Darfur. UN DPKO recommended strongly that EUFOR be four times the deployment goal of approximately 4,000 personnel.

The question I see before us in thinking about the UN/African "Hybrid" Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), with the Chapter 7 authority of Resolution 1769 (July 2007), is not whether peace can be "kept" or "enforced," but whether more than 4 million highly distressed civilians will face the coming rainy season/hunger gap without humanitarian assistance. For make no mistake about it: humanitarian organizations, with whom I speak regularly, including those of the UN, are all at the breaking point.

They operate in security conditions that would preclude the entry of humanitarian organizations in any other circumstances. Organizations and workers stay because they know the cataclysmically destructive consequences of their withdrawal at this point---and what would happen to civilian security if there were no international witnesses. But they all have their breaking point, and far too many are simply one violent incident away from leaving altogether or hunkering down in the el-Fasher and Nyala (el-Geneina, capital of West Darfur, would be too dangerous were security to deteriorate any further).

Some measure of civilian security, and security for critically necessary humanitarian operations, is all that UNAMID will be able to provide for the foreseeable future. The securing of road corridors for UN World Food Program convoys is the most desperately urgent task, along with the introduction of Formed Police Units in the most unstable IDP camps, now housing more than 2.5 million civilians (many of these camps are tinder-boxes poised to explode, with uncontrollable consequences). We might debate about what prevents UNAMID from becoming more effective, or whether it would be adequate to keep any peace that might be negotiated in the future; I would be dismayed if we could not agree that the international community must provide as much security as possible---even in the face of variable and very considerable risks. This may not be peacekeeping in any historically recognizable form, but with so many lives at risk, I believe we need to broaden the discussion of how the military resources of the international community are used.

If UNAMID were to become actively targeted on a continuing and significant basis, indiviSenegal has in the past been quite explicit on this point, and their troops are some of the most important on the ground. There are certainly ways in which even incremental improvements in civilian and humanitarian security could be prevented by combatants on the ground in Darfur. But again, the human stakes are simply too great to ignore the potential security that UNAMID might provide.

The Vodafone Foundation and the United Nations Foundation released a new report on innovative uses of mobile technology by NGOs working to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals. The report identifies emerging trends in "mobile activism" through 11 case studies, and highlights the results of a global survey of NGO usage of mobile technology.

Here's a taste of some of the findings from three of the case studies:

Cell-Life, a non-governmental organization based in Cape Town, South Africa, created its "Aftercare" program to work with the public health system and its health workers to provide home-based care for HIV/AIDS patients receiving Anti-Retroviral Treatments. Each Aftercare worker is assigned to monitor 15 to 20 patients. The worker visits the patient in his or her home, and in a one on one session discusses the patient's current treatment. Using their mobile phones for data capture, Aftercare workers record information about patient medical status, drug adherence, and other factors that may affect a patient's ART therapy. Aftercare workers then relay this information via text message to a central Cell-Life database. The data sent via text message reaches the Cell-Life server, where a care manager uses a web-based system to access and monitor the incoming patient information. The manager can also respond to Aftercare workers' questions and provide supplemental information to improve patient care. The information collected not only facilitates individual patient care, but is also used to build a database of information on the severity and prevalence of the South African AIDS epidemic in these regions.

More examples like this after the jump.

EpiSurveyor
In 2002, Dr. Joel Selanikio teamed up with computer scientist Rose Donna to form the DataDyne Group, a non-profit dedicated to increasing access to public health data through mobile software solutions. Inspired by an earlier Centers for Disease Control product called Epi Info, Selanikio created EpiSurveyor, a free, open source mobile data collection software tool. EpiSurveyor offers health data collection forms that can be downloaded at no cost and modified by anyone with basic computer skills.

Through the pilot, thirty provincial health supervisors in Zambia and Kenya were trained in how to use EpiSurveyor on Palm Zire handheld computers. The health officers then used EpiSurveyor to collect management data about public health clinics--such as medical supply quantities and levels of staff training. In both countries, officers went beyond the purpose of the pilot to gather additional health data as new needs arose. In Zambia, for example, the supplied PDAs and EpiSurveyor software were used by health officers to conduct a post-measles vaccination campaign coverage survey--the very first time that such a survey had been independently conducted by in-country staff using PDAs.

HOW IT WORKS: EpiSurveyor incorporates a Windows- based "Designer" forms creation application, and a Java-based engine that can run on personal digital assistants (PDAs), smart phones, and soon, common mobile phones. Users start by downloading the software from the DataDyne.org website (www.datadyne.org). Then, using a desktop or laptop computer, they enter the health survey questions into the Designer program. The resulting form can then be published to a mobile device. For data that is collected via PDA or smart phone, once data is collected from the field the mobile device is synchronized with the computer. Data from multiple handsets can then be combined into a single data table for analysis.

And here in the United States
SexInfo
It was while standing in front of the Mission High School near her home in San Francisco, California that Deborah Levine, executive director of internet Sexuality Information Services (ISIS-Inc.), a nonprofit she founded that develops "high-tech solutions for sexual health education," conceived of a potential solution to a pressing public health problem.

Levine had recently been approached by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) to develop a website to address rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases among at-risk youth. In 2005, rates of gonorrhea among African-American youth, ages 18 to 25, had gone up over 100 percent, with African-American women being infected by the disease at 12 times the rate of American women of Caucasian descent. With 85 percent of the city's youth owning a mobile phone, a text-based approach simply made sense.

ISIS hired HipCricket, Inc., a mobile marketing firm in Australia, to program a service it developed known as SexInfo. Next came the task of working with mobile operators to provide mobile phone subscribers with access to the service. HipCricket offered to let ISIS-Inc use its five-digit 'short code' during the project's
start-up phase. Levine was then able to work through an aggregator in the United States to obtain the short code (61827) now being used to access SexInfo.

During the first 25 weeks of the project (April–October 2006), 4,500 individuals accessed the service, with 2,500 taking the steps to retrieve content and referrals. The top three messages accessed were: "What 2 do if ur condom broke,: "2 find out about STDs" and "if u think ur pregnant."

Eight more case studies are examined in the report. And be sure to check out our interview with report co-author Katrin Verclas.

>>Somalia - Today U.S. strikes in Somalia killed Aden Hashi Ayro, al Qaeda's leader in Somalia who has led al Shabaab militants in attacks against government and Ethiopian troops. Violence led by Ayro had intensified in recent weeks with attacks in Mogadishu and quick raids in surrounding areas. Reports suggest that civilians were also killed in the attack.

>>Haiti - A top World Food Program official has said that Haiti faces a "major crisis" if international donors don't pony up for emergency aid. Earlier this month, six Haitians were killed in widespread protests about the rising cost of food. The WFP has appealed for $54 million to help dampen the increase. According to the WFP, two-thirds of Haitians live on less than $1 a day and almost half are undernourished. Meanwhile, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos are weighing a rice cartel.

>>Iraq - According to figures from Iraq's Health Ministry, April was the deadliest month since last August for Iraqi civilians, 898 of whom died last month. According to U.S. military reports, 49 U.S. soldiers died in April, the deadliest month since last September. The majority of the deaths occurred in Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have been fighting an offensive against militants associated with Moqtada al Sadr.

• Worse than not authorizing a force at all
• What about Somalia...
• Baby Steps

Africa

• Somalia - Civilians gunned down in Somalia
• Burundi - Burundi must act on torture, rights group says
• Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe police accuse opposition
• Namibia - Namibia's treasure ship wreck
• Zimbabwe - Leaked poll results show that Mugabe lost, but will fight second round
• Zimbabwe - Harare to concede Tsvangirai victory
• Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe braced for presidential run-off
• Burundi - Burundi aims to rid itself of landmines
• Sudan - Intensified Fighting, Inadequate Aid Mar Return of Refugees to S. Sudan
• Egypt - 7 European and Canadian Tourists Killed in Egypt Bus Accident
• South Africa - SA elephants can be culled again
• Somalia - US air strikes succeed in killing top al Qaeda terrorist in Somalia
• Sudan - Militias attack Darfuris refusing census, kill 5

Americas

• Argentina - Argentina rattled by Falkland drilling plans
• Haiti - World Food Program sees 'major crisis' in Haiti
• U.S. - Fewer Latino Immigrants Sending Money Home

Asia

• China - 167 children rescued in China child labour crackdown
• China - Olympic 100 days countdown marred by US and UK criticism of China
• China - Beijing is to impose smoking ban
• N. Korea - House draws line on North Korea
• S. Korea - Emerging markets power S Korea exports
• Vietnam - 5 Asian Nations Are Weighing a Rice Cartel
• China - New anti-French rallies in China
• China - China opens record-breaking sea bridge

Europe

• Germany - Germany opens huge Nazi crimes archive to public
• Spain - Spain moves against illegal road races
• Belarus - Belarus Expels 10 U.S. Diplomats in Sanctions Dispute
• Italy - 5 French Mountaineers Die in Avalanche in Italy

Middle East

• Turkey - EU hails Turkey free speech move
• Israel - New plan for W Bank checkpoints
• Iran - Iran launches new crackdown on dress code offenders
• Israel - Palestinian factions agree to truce with Israel: MENA
• Turkey - Turkey says inflation will be double target
• Iraq - April Iraq's deadliest month since last August
• Iraq - Iraq Team to Discuss Militias With Iran
• Iran - 'Provocative' Clinton angers Iran
• Iran - Quake hits Iran, about 100 lightly injured: TV