Contributors: Arlene McCurtin, Damhnait Ni Mhurchu, Petro van deventer, Marie Kennedy, Ger McGuirk, Trish Morrison, Jeni Malone

New evidence this year corroborates the rise in world hunger observed in this report last year, sending a warning that more action is needed if we aspire to end world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. Updated estimates show the number of people who suffer from hunger has been growing over the past three years, returning to prevailing levels from almost a decade ago. Although progress continues to be made in reducing child stunting, over 22 percent of children under five years of age are still affected. Other forms of malnutrition are also growing: adult obesity continues to increase in countries irrespective of their income levels, and many countries are coping with multiple forms of malnutrition at the same time – overweight and obesity, as well as anaemia in women, and child stunting and wasting. Last year’s report showed that the failure to reduce world hunger is closely associated with the increase in conflict and violence in several parts of the world. In some countries, initial evidence showed climate-related events were also undermining food security and nutrition. This year’s report goes further to show that climate variability and extremes – even without conflict – are key drivers behind the recent rise in global hunger and one of the leading causes of severe food crises and their impact on people’s nutrition and health. Climate variability and exposure to more complex, frequent and intense climate extremes are threatening to erode and reverse gains in ending hunger and malnutrition. Furthermore, hunger is significantly worse in countries where agriculture systems are highly sensitive to rainfall, temperature and severe drought, and where the livelihood of a high proportion of the population depends on agriculture. The findings of this report reveal new challenges to ending hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition. There is an urgent need to accelerate and scale up actions that strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity of people and their livelihoods to climate variability and extremes. These and other findings are detailed in the 2018 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World.

The Philippines has made significant strides in reducing poverty, but the persistent threat of natural disasters, compounded by the country's vulnerability and exposure, continues to jeopardize these gains. Many households in disaster-prone areas hover precariously close to the poverty line, and the devastating impact of disasters on their assets, income, and well-being exacerbates this vulnerability. Anticipatory Action and adaptive and shock-responsive social protection emerges as critical approaches to mitigate the effects of disasters. Specifically, anticipatory cash transfers have shown promise in reducing asset and income losses for affected households. However, the effectiveness of such measures hinges on strengthening the existing social protection system, improving data collection and coordination, and addressing policy gaps, such as the absence of clear cost-sharing rules and concerns over local government capacities. This investment case has shown that the government has various effective and financially viable anticipatory action programming options at its disposal to reduce potential losses from natural disasters. While the choice of which options will be implemented in response to future emergencies lies with the government and the responding agencies, any effective and timely response will depend on the preparations and strengthening activities that will be carried out at the policy, program, and administrative levels over the coming years.

The life and times of the Great British Pudding, both savoury and sweet - with 80 recipes re-created for the 21st century home cook Jamie Oliver says of Pride and Pudding 'A truly wonderful thing of beauty, a very tasty masterpiece!' BLESSED BE HE THAT INVENTED PUDDING The great British pudding, versatile and wonderful in all its guises, has been a source of nourishment and delight since the days of the Roman occupation, and probably even before then. By faithfully recreating recipes from historical cookery texts and updating them for today's kitchens and ingredients, Regula Ysewijn has revived over 80 beautiful puddings for the modern home cook. There are ancient savoury dishes such as the Scottish haggis or humble beef pudding, traditional sweet and savoury pies, pastries, jellies, ices, flummeries, junkets, jam roly-poly and, of course, the iconic Christmas pudding. Regula tells the story of each one, sharing the original recipe alongside her own version, while paying homage to the cooks, writers and moments in history that helped shape them.

Drawing on Judy Hutchings many years of work with parents and children, The Positive Parenting Handbook is a concise, straightforward guide that offers simple solutions to daily dilemmas. The clear and easy advice provides parents with skills and tools that support positive parent/child relationships for happy and confident children. It explains common behaviour problems in young children and offers expert advice on: -How to build strong bonds and let children know they are important to you -How to encourage behaviour we want to see through praise and small rewards -Giving instructions that children are more likely to follow -How ignoring some unwanted behaviours can be helpful -Strategies for managing difficult behaviour -Teaching new behaviour to our children -Developing children’s language. It includes six case studies of how these strategies have helped real families with everyday problems at bedtime and mealtimes, during toilet training, out shopping and when children experience anxiety. Together with suggestions of other useful books and information sources, The Positive Parenting Handbook is ideal for all parents, including those of children with diagnosed developmental difficulties, and the range of professionals who work with them.

Contributors: Arlene McCurtin, Damhnait Ni Mhurchu, Petro van deventer, Marie Kennedy, Ger McGuirk, Trish Morrison, Jeni Malone

This framework fosters the replication and scaling up of home-grown school feeding models and the mapping of opportunities for linking such programmes with relevant agricultural development and rural transformation investments.

What do the Fab Five from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the Supernanny and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver all have in common? Lifestyle gurus are increasingly intruding on everyday life, directing ordinary people to see themselves as «projects» that can be «made over» through embracing an ethos of relentless self-improvement. Smart Living argues that they represent a new form of popular expertise sweeping the world. Written in a lively and accessible manner, the book examines this cult of expertise across a range of media and cultural sites and offers the reader a range of critical tools for understanding the recent emergence of this popular international phenomenon. Smart Living is a must-read for anyone interested in the relationship between popular media culture and contemporary social life.