Right food, Right Time, Right Now

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I am on Twitter now with this online persona and keep finding more people and groups working on the Millennium Development Goals with which to connect. The latest was with the World Food Programme (which I connected to through a fellow MAKE NOISE for the Millennium Development Goals BloggersUnite blogger from the Philippines).

The World Food Programme or WFP connected back with me and sent me a direct message.

WFP: Malnourished mothers give birth to malnourished children - we can break the cycle of hunger http://t.co/Mg8MxfR @WFP (pls share this)

The link goes to the video below.

This combines a number of the Millennium Development Goals together. MDG 1. End Hunger is an obvious one but as the cycle of malnutrition makes clear MDG 5. Maternal Health is an important aspect of the problem and if malnutrition impacts developmental health it is also a matter of MDG 4. Child Health. Finally, since most of this is handled by women MDG 3. Gender Equity should also be natural connection.

It can also be extended to include MDG 7. Environmental Sustainability because as the folks from Oxfam pointed out,

Poor women around the world are hardest hit by changes in the environment. When wells run dry, they may have to walk hours farther for water. Women are largely responsible for feeding their families, so when crops fail and food is scarce, they're the last to eat or they go without.

Oxfam is spearheading Sisters on the Planet, bringing women from poor countries together with powerful American women leaders to put pressure on Congress and bring the voices of these communities directly into the debate.

Women make a difference in Haiti and will make a difference in the new millennium

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Bloggers Unite for Haiti is still actively sharing information about this disaster and how people around the world can provide aid to ongoing relief efforts. Today is their next date for a joint effort from bloggers across the globe.

Next week is another Bloggers Unite Event and that is International Women's Day, so I decided to examine the role of women in the crisis in Haiti and how they are being incorporated into the relief efforts.

Robin Marty from Care2 writing on Women's Rights provided an UPDATE: Disaster Aid in Haiti Focuses on Women

One of the hardest aspects of dealing with a disaster is always the dispersement of aid, especially trying to get it to those who need it most. To help faciliate this in post-earthquake Haiti, relief workers are beginning to hand out women-only aid coupons. Those providing aid see it as the easiest way to be certain food will make it to those who are the most vulnerable.

Aid agencies have launched a new food distribution program focusing primarily on women.

"Our experience around the world is that food is more likely to be equitably shared in the household if it is given to women," Marcus Prior, a spokesman for the United Nations' World Food Program, told The Associated Press.

This was accomplished through a major Haiti food distribution plan launched by the UN a new UN food coupons, which has become as good as money in Haiti

The United Nations launched a large-scale distribution program to provide food aid to 2 million Haitians. Under the program, only women will be able to collect food by trading in vouchers at distribution centers in a bid to prevent the repeat of recent incidents of violence and looting. The New York Times (1/30)

With hunger still a mounting problem for many in Haiti, the UN has introduced a new food-distribution program to replace the haphazard and Darwinian giveaways that have until now marked aid efforts. A coupon redeemable for 55 pounds of rice has become more valuable than money -- the effective currency of a country whose capital and government were destroyed in the earthquake. By emphasizing women as the recipients and installing the coupons in 16 stable locations, food distribution has improved, though disorientation remains a significant obstacle to providing aid. More at The New York Times (2/2)

As I said before, Progress in Haiti are Lessons for the Millennium Development Goals that can be applied to the Millennium Development Goals. This should demonstrate the importance of Millennium Development Goal No. 3. Gender Equity, because addressing this goal actually helps to address all 8 of the Millennium Development Goals and the 15 Millennium Challenges that make them up.

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