Introduction

About Me:
I'm Jen Sapitro, I am a MPH student in the International Health and Development Department at Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. This blog has been created as a final assignment for INHL 720, Development Theory. It will be my last (class-related) assignment at Tulane!

My experience working abroad has been focused in Kenya (some people say that I am studying Kenya Health and Development). Although I have traveled throughout the country, the majority of my time has been spent in Nairobi. I am, unfortunately, guilty of the urban bias that Alex de Waal discusses throughout the book (keep reading).

About the Assignment:
The course, over the past eight weeks, has covered predominant theories and concepts of development. We started by asking "what is development?" (a question I admittedly am still not sure I am able to answer) and discussed the perspectives of different philosophers, theorists, authors and organizations. I will be discussing some of these theories and concepts, including neoliberalism, livelihoods, rights-based approaches, and postdevelopment in later posts.

My final assignment is based on the book Famine Crimes (click here for a preview of the first 18 pages) by Alex de Waal. The book is his analysis of the issue of famine in Africa, the failure to respond by African governments, and the perpetuation of famine by western donors and international, humanitarian organizations. I will be posting several entries that reflect and expand upon the main themes discussed in the book by applying concepts and theories presented in the course, through my own perspective.

About Famine Crimes (briefly):
de Waal started writing Famine Crimes in an attempt to flesh out an assertion by Amartya Sen that countries in which citizens enjoy political freedoms (the freedom to vote freely and fairly, freedom of the press, freedom to protest, freedom of speech) do not experience famine. Sen argues that famines represent not a shortage of food but a lack of access, for social, political, or economic reasons, to food (more on defining famine in a later blog post).

One of the main themes in the book, building upon on Sen's ideas, is that famine is political and that both governments and humanitarian agencies enter into a political contract with the citizens of countries. By being elected and allowed into the country, governments and agencies take on the responsibility of preventing famine, which de Waal believes should be considered a "political scandal." Neither, he says, have held up their end of the contract. African politicians are the main culprits for creating and then not responding properly to famines. Western governments and agencies have, through neoliberal policies such as structural adjustment and disaster relief programs, undermined governments' accountability to those who (fairly or not fairly) elected them.

About the blog:
I hope to post at the very least every other day but hopefully every day. I have some of my post topics in mind but hope that the shape of the blog will develop as I go. I will try to provide links to relevant concepts, people, websites, and media. I welcome any and all questions, suggestions, corrections and criticisms by e-mail at sapitroj@gmail.com or in the comments section!