The Christian Science Monitor looks at one idea about why hunger is receiving a lot of attention in the international arena. Kanayo Nwanze, the Kenyan “who recently became president of the United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) says globalization has made the hunger and rural poverty that always pulled on the heartstrings an international security issue,” according to the publication.

A report (.pdf) published on Wednesday by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) — titled “U.S. Global Health Policy in Palestinian Hands?” and written by J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president and director of the Global Health Policy Center at CSIS, and Haim Malka, senior fellow and deputy director of the CSIS Middle East Program — examines the relationship between Palestine’s bid for statehood and potential membership in U.N. bodies — including the WHO — and U.S. global health policy, according to the report summary. CSIS writes on its website, “Under current U.S. laws, such a decision by the Palestinians would trigger an automatic disruption to the United States’ assessed and voluntary contributions to WHO, with no waiver provisions” (3/7).

The White House nominee for president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, on Tuesday begins a seven-country “listening tour” in order “to promote his candidacy with stops in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the Treasury Department announced Monday,” Bloomberg Businessweek reports (Crutsinger, 3/26). According to Reuters, “The Treasury Department said Kim will visit Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as well as Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, New Delhi, Brasilia and Mexico City between March 27 and April 9 to meet heads of state, finance ministers and others to talk about priorities for the World Bank.”

Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks”: Treat global health crises the same way as national security crises, panel says Rabita Aziz, policy research coordinator for the Center for Global Health Policy, discusses remarks made by panelists at the launch of a Brenthurst Foundation report on the West African Ebola…

Nature: Trump agenda threatens U.S. legacy of science diplomacy “…U.S. President Donald Trump has a deep bench of scientific and technical expertise to tap across multiple government agencies — but it is not clear that he will use it. Science diplomats are watching warily to see whether the volatile new…

Reuters: Commentary: The best way to fix U.S. diplomacy Richard G. Lugar, former U.S. Senator from Indiana and former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Thomas Pickering, former under secretary of state and former ambassador “American foreign policy currently stands at a crossroads. There are two possible paths…

Devex: U.K. joins COVAX scheme on deadline day “The United Kingdom on Friday joined the international COVAX facility for researching, manufacturing, and equitably distributing vaccines against COVID-19, confirming its participation in the scheme on deadline day. It joins at least 76 wealthy states, including Japan and Norway, in signing up…

USAID: USAID Delivers 200 Ventilators To The North Atlantic Treaty Organization “[On Friday], the U.S. Government donated 200 brand-new, American-made ventilators to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to help U.S. Allies respond to the pandemic of COVID-19. NATO will store the 200 ventilators and distribute them as needed to…

Council on Foreign Relations: The WHO and China: Dereliction of Duty Michael Collins, research associate for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, discusses the relationship between the World Health Organization and China, highlighting the WHO’s response to China’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak. Collins writes, “The WHO’s weak…

Wall Street Journal: U.S. Makes Diplomatic Push for Taiwan to Attend WHO Summit “A fight over whether Taiwan can participate in a World Health Organization conference on the coronavirus pandemic later this month is escalating a bitter tug of war between the U.S. and China over leadership within the U.N.…