Tom Arnold | |
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| Occupation | Director General of IIEA, former CEO of Concern Worldwide and special representative for hunger. |
Tom Arnold is an Irish agricultural economist and public policy advisor who has worked in the Irish civil service and served on various non-governmental organisations and public forums, mainly in the area of food security.
Arnold has a degree in agricultural economics from University College Dublin, an MBA from the Université catholique de Louvain, and a master's in strategic management from Trinity College Dublin. [1]
In August 2014, Arnold accepted a request from the UN to coordinate the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement [2] (SUN Movement), which brings together governments, civil society and the private sector, to improve nutrition at national and international level. The request was made following the appointment by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of Dr David Nabarro, the current coordinator of the SUN Movement, to be the UN system's senior coordinator of the response to the Ebola virus disease. In Dr Nabarro's absence as SUN coordinator, Arnold was to provide strategic leadership to the SUN Movement, working closely with the existing SUN networks and the SUN secretariat, based in Geneva. The appointment was for a six-month period, starting 1 September 2014.
Arnold was director general of the Institute of International and European Affairs from 2013 to 2017. [3] From 2012 to 2014, Arnold was chairman of Ireland's Constitutional Convention. [3] Arnold served as chief executive officer of Concern Worldwide, Ireland's largest humanitarian aid agency, from October 2001 to February 2013. [1]
As a civil servant, he served as assistant secretary-general and chief economist with the Irish Department of Agriculture, (1988–2001) and senior economist with the Irish farm advisory service, ACOT. [3]
In May 2018, Arnold was appointed chair of Task Force Rural Africa, a joint effort of the EU and the African Union to improve Africa's food production. The body was tasked with producing recommendations by the end of the year. [4]
Arnold has presided (as chair, coordinator, director-general, etc.) over:-
He has been a member of:-
Arnold received honorary doctorates from the National University of Ireland in 2009 [16] and University College Dublin in 2010, [17] and a People of the Year Award in 2013. [18]
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is an international organization that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. Its Latin motto, fiat panis, translates to "let there be bread". It was founded on 16 October 1945.
In politics, humanitarian aid, and the social sciences, hunger is defined as a condition in which a person does not have the physical or financial capability to eat sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs for a sustained period. In the field of hunger relief, the term hunger is used in a sense that goes beyond the common desire for food that all humans experience, also known as an appetite. The most extreme form of hunger, when malnutrition is widespread, and when people have started dying of starvation through lack of access to sufficient, nutritious food, leads to a declaration of famine.
Food security is the measure of the availability of food and individuals' ability to access it. According to the United Nations' Committee on World Food Security, food security is defined as meaning that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life. The availability of food irrespective of class, gender or region is another one. There is evidence of food security being a concern many thousands of years ago, with central authorities in ancient China and ancient Egypt being known to release food from storage in times of famine. At the 1974 World Food Conference, the term "food security" was defined with an emphasis on supply; food security is defined as the "availability at all times of adequate, nourishing, diverse, balanced and moderate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption and to offset fluctuations in production and prices". Later definitions added demand and access issues to the definition. The first World Food Summit, held in 1996, stated that food security "exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life."
CGIAR is a global partnership that unites international organizations engaged in research about food security. CGIAR research aims to reduce rural poverty, increase food security, improve human health and nutrition, and sustainable management of natural resources. It is carried out at 15 centers that collaborate with partners from national and regional research institutes, civil society organizations, academia, development organizations, and the private sector. These research centers are around the globe, with most in the Global South and Vavilov Centers of agricultural crop genetic diversity.
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Food security is defined, according to the World Food Summit of 1996, as existing "when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life". This commonly refers to people having "physical and economic access" to food that meets both their nutritional needs and food preferences. Today, Ethiopia faces high levels of food insecurity, ranking as one of the hungriest countries in the world, with an estimated 5.2 million people needing food assistance in 2010. Ethiopia was ranked 92 in the world in Global Hunger Index 2020.
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