Faculty Update

Food Security at SID: Richard Lockwood, PhD

I recently spent six weeks in Ecuador, including the Amazon region that borders Colombia, to field test an Emergency Food Security Assessment Handbook, evaluating the usefulness of the handbook and providing information to the World Food Programme (WFP) in Rome. There is currently a refugee problem involving Colombians who cross the border between Colombia and Ecuador to escape the violence generated by drug traffickers. Once the refugees are in Ecuador they need emergency food assistance. The food is purchased by the World Food Programme from within Ecuador and distributed to them at feeding centers usually run by the Catholic Church.
The handbook was also field tested in Bolivia and three countries in Africa. During this trip to Ecuador, I found that the major difficulty in the testing of the handbook was sampling. It was a challenge to get accurate addresses from the refugees, and it therefore was necessary to return several times to locate them.

At the Heller School's SID Program, I have taught a course on Food Security and Nutrition and served as a faculty advisor for the last four years. My student advisees developed Master's Projects that cover many diverse topics in Food Security. For example, Jason Hobbs, MA 05, spent his internship with the Food and Agricultural Organization in Brasilia, Brazil, evaluating Food Security and Rural Poverty within the context of the government's Zero Hunger Program. His work was so outstanding that he was offered a full time position at the World Bank in Brasilia. Carlos Calderon, MA 06, evaluated the Vaso de Leche (glass of milk) program in Peru, identifying beneficiaries and their location, and determining whether the program fulfilled its objectives to combat malnutrition. Hoang Duc Quyen, MA 06, used his knowledge of ethnic minorities in his home province of Quang Tri to see if the Vietnamese Government was actually providing assistance to eradicate hunger among this underserved population. He is currently back in Vietnam continuing this work. A current advisee, Saman Qureshi, MA 07 from Pakistan, works with recent data from an indigenous Bolivian community. With the help of Professor Ricardo Godoy, she is examining how local households cope with food insecurity stemming from external shocks such as floods. She will examine coping mechanisms and outcomes measured by the rates of malnutrition and household food consumption.

The food security issue is one of basic needs and will continue to generate new ideas and new solutions. The SID students are outstanding in their scholarship and commitment. It is a real pleasure to work with them.

Read Professor Lockwood's faculty profile.

Photo: Professor Lockwood with two Ecuadorian health workers interviewing Colombian refugees

Joan Kaufman, ScD

Starting in August 2003, I have been teaching a course on HIV/AIDS and public policy for the SID Program. In the 1980s, I became extremely interested in international development and spent more than 25 years engaged in work with China and other countries on population and reproductive health and on HIV/AIDS. For ten years, I lived in China and worked for the United Nations (1980-84) and the Ford Foundation (1996-2001). I have connected my interests in gender and reproductive health to HIV/AIDS policy and programs, but work on all these issues independently as well as on social policy issues in China, and China's health system.

In addition to teaching and research, I direct a training program (that I founded) for government officials in China and Vietnam, which focuses on governance for an effective response to HIV/AIDS in those countries. During one of my recent overseas trips, I had the pleasure of meeting with Trang Ngo, MS 05, who worked for our program in Boston and Hanoi after graduating from SID. She is now working for USAID/PEPFAR in their AIDS program office in Hanoi. I have an ongoing research program on gender and health equity in rural China, which is part of a comparative study of women's participation in health planning in China, India, and Mozambique.

I am also currently launching an intervention and research program for community-based mental health outreach and therapy for AIDS orphans in rural China. This program will provide group interpersonal therapy (IPT) for adolescents to treat depression among AIDS orphans, aged 12-16 in rural China. A similar program was demonstrated to be affective in rural Uganda with adolescents. The intervention utilizes a group format that is compatible with the culture of extended family and community support in rural China. IPT is a useful approach because it can be delivered by trained community-based workers without formal psychological training and is limited to 4 months duration. It is quite possible that this approach could be a model for effective counseling for AIDS orphans in the rest of the world.

Recently, I published an on-line edited book titled, AIDS and Social Policy in China, available for download at the Harvard University Asia Center Publications website. This volume, the first English language book on China's AIDS epidemic, provides a picture of the current state of the epidemic, a social science and interdisciplinary perspective on gaps in the response, and a blueprint for needed actions. Contributors comprise some of the world's leading Chinese and international researchers, policy-makers, and civil society representatives working on HIV/AIDS in China. The multi-disciplinary work provides a critically needed social science perspective and analysis of the epidemic, offers a framework for thinking about the spread of HIV in China, and includes suggestions for an effective policy response that also addresses social determinants.

Joan Kaufman is Senior Scientist, Heller School of Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University and the Director of the AIDS Public Policy Project at the Kennedy School of Government, and Lecturer in Social Medicine Harvard Medical School.

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New Course on the Right to Water

In the Fall of 2006, SID offered its first interdisciplinary course (other than Frameworks) on the Right to Water. Professors Maria Green (human rights) and Attila Klein (biology) created and co-taught the module, which focused on the issue of access to clean water and sanitation from a human rights perspective. The course looked at issues of water -- both science and policy -- with a focus on the societal arrangements and governmental choices that impact on access to water at the household level. At the core of the class were the decision points and modes of decision-making with regard to water policy, which were examined both from a technical perspective -- to understand the factual issues, and from a rights perspective -- to understand the relevant international standards and how they apply, in a practical sense, at national levels. The course did not assume that recognition of water as a right meant instant access to adequate water and sanitation for all; rather, faculty and students tried to understand how a human rights analysis could shape expectations and advocacy methods around water policy.

Over the span of the course, participants explored the notion of the right to water, including the legal sources of the right, the core elements of the rights-based approach to social issues, the substantive obligations involved, and the relevance of process rights such as non-discrimination, freedom of expression, legal remedy, and participation. They also gained exposure to the basic factual contours of water for personal use (with an emphasis on the role of clean water for human health). Finally, the class explored water and sanitation policy, examining the key decision points (from safety regulation to distribution means to pricing to how decisions are made) and looked at each decision point from both a technical and a rights perspective. Issues addressed in this context included regulation of water quality, privatization, water budgeting, and participation in decision-making.

SID students who took the course had many interesting comments. Pertula George, MA 07 from St. Lucia, found most stimulating the debate about the right to water and what it means to be a right in that sense. She said that much discussion erupted from one question, "Does the right to water mean that water should be free?" Pertula also felt that the field trip to the Fresh Pond Cambridge Water Department was a valuable experience because she was able to compare the facilities in Cambridge with that of St. Lucia. She commented that, "It was amazing to see the technology and history behind Cambridge's tap water and recognize that such technology would make a huge difference for developing countries." Alan Ibale, MA 07 from the Philippines, liked the mix of legal and ecological approaches that were provided by Professors Green and Klein. He said that it gave a new flavor to teaching, "Having a mix of a humorously intelligent Professor Klein and the lawyerly air of Professor Green is like having a dynamic duo of specialists in class." Catie Ryan, MA 07 from the US, was attracted to the class because of its dynamic integration of topics: water, environmental health, privatization, and human rights law. She commented that, "I enjoyed learning about the human right to water as a complex but logical concept, so new to academia, that our professors -- rather than just teaching the subject matter --served to inspire integrative critical thought and topical discussion. The Right to Water class was a progressive and much needed addition to the SID program."