Twenty-Fifth Annual World Food Day Teleconference
October 16, 2008
Choices for a Warm
and Hungry Planet
The current UNDP Human Development Report states that “climate change is the defining human development challenge of the 21st Century. Failure to respond to that challenge will stall and then reverse international efforts to reduce poverty.... Looking to the future, no country – however wealthy or powerful – will be immune to the impact of global warming.”
This year’s teleconference will examine the issues affected, the challenges posed and diversity of approaches that will be required to respond. As one expert has said the “catastrophes are not democratic.” The multifaceted ripple effects are being felt from main street to the UN and are inspiring urgent searches for new civil society partnerships including the academic community. Three experts from very different backgrounds will be our guests. Dr. Nancy Birdsall, founding president of the Center for Global Development; Dr. Siwa Msangi, from the International Food Policy Research Institute; and Mark Ritchie, Minnesota’s Secretary of State will discuss the many cross-cutting issues and consider ways to encourage collaborative efforts by concerned citizens in every sector of society. In addition to the guest panelists there will be a live uplink from the World Food Prize ceremonies in Iowa.
The program will be broadcast live from Washington DC, Thursday, October 16th, from noon to 3:00 p.m., Eastern Time. The DISH Network will carry the program on a tape-delay basis. The program also will be available in English through the facilities of the American Embassy Television Service. There is no fee for registration and there are no restrictions on videotaping or re-broadcast by ETV and cable stations. 
New this year
Elluminate Conferencing Services
will be providing web access to the teleconference on a limited basis.
Single reproducible copies of the Teleconference Study/Action Packet, prepared by the U.S. National Committee for World Food Day, will be available in early summer and will be sent free of charge to registered sites in North America. Continuing Education Credits for teleconference participation will be provided through Marywood University for interested clergy and social service professionals. The American Dietetic Association gives CEUS for registered dietitians and dietetic technicians and the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences has approved Professional Development Units (PDUS) for its members.
For additional information on the World Food Day Teleconference or other World Food Day resources and event planning ideas please contact Patricia Young, National Coordinator (patricia.young@fao.org.)
U.S. National Committee for World Food Day
2175 K Street NW
Washington DC 20437
Tel. 202-653-2404 Fax 202-653-5760
www.worldfooddayusa.org
2008 World Food Day Teleconference Panel
Dr. Nancy Birdsall
Dr. Birdsall, founding president of the Center for Global Development, brings to the discussion of global warming and poverty a distinguished history of leadership and service with varied institutions such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the World Bank, the Smithsonian and the American Council on Education. Other activities include membership on a number of Boards and an author or editor of more than a dozen books and monographs and dozens of articles on development. Her work at Carnegie focused on issues of globalization and inequality. She received her BA from Newton College of the Sacred Heart, her MA in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and her PhD in Economics from Yale University.
Dr. Siwa Msangi
Dr. Msangi, a native of Tanzania, is a Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington DC where he leads global modeling work on water impact. He has additional interests in quantitative dynamic economics and empirical agricultural production analysis for environmental policy. He is the author of numerous papers on agriculture and water issues including biofuels, the environment and water sustainability and has received several awards for research. His current research focuses on global trends in Food Supply and Demand. Dr. Msangi attended the Alliance High School in Kenya and received his BSc in Chemical Engineering and his MA from Stanford University and his PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California at Davis.
Mark Ritchie
Mr. Ritchie serves as Minnesota’s Secretary of State. He was elected to this office in November 2006 after an energetic campaign and years of involvement in community issues, especially related to agriculture and trade issues. He served for 20 years as the president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minnesota-based public research center working with businesses, churches, farm organizations and other civic groups to foster long-term economic and environmental sustainability. In 2003 Mr. Ritchie led National Voice, a national coalition of over two thousand community-organizations from across the country working together to increase non-partisan civic engagement and voter participation. He earned his BS degree in Distributive Studies from Iowa State University.
Program Host
RAY SUAREZ
Ray Suarez is a senior correspondent with the PBS Jim Lehrer NewsHour and formerly host of NPR's news program Talk of the Nation. He brings more than 30 years of experience in the news business to the daily broadcast, having worked for NBC-TV in Chicago, CNN, ABC Radio, CBS Radio in Rome and been a reporter for various American and British news services in London. Author of several books, his most recent, The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America. was published in 2006. Recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, he holds a B.A. degree in African history from New York University and a M.A. in social sciences from the University of Chicago. Mr. Suarez has moderated eight previous teleconferences for World Food Day – in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2006 and 2007.