July 13th 2010 is the 25th anniversary of the Live Aid concert, and we are again reminded of the importance and scale of foreign aid provided to developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.  The latest issue of ESRC Society Now (Summer, Issue 7) features an article titled First Aid or Lasting Aid?, in which a panel of commentators explores the landscape of foreign aid in the 21st century, including:

• The demand for effective aid
• Tacking the barriers to growth
• Povery, aid and security
• Empowering the poor
• Aid in the global recession

Further challenging discussions and interviews can be found on the 21st Century Challenges website, which features interviews with Sir Bob Geldof and Kofi Annan talking about Africa in the 21st Century.

For teaching resources, the Geography Teaching Today website has a range of resources, including Africa: a continent of contrasts (KS3).  To improve students’ knowledge of Africa, consider using these online interactive tutorials: The Scale of Africa, Africa’s contrasting environments, and What do you know about Africa?.  For a different perspective to the impact of foreign aid and economic development in poorer countries, look at the resources on Globalisation (KS4/5), and the interactive tutorial on the widening global wealth gap.  Looking back, the Geography in the News website has teaching resources examining at the G8 summit in 2005, which included a discussion between some of the world’s richest countries about Africa.  The pack includes details of the Live 8! event, the Make Poverty History campaign, and discusses the complex geographical issues that surround making decisions about wealth, poverty and foreign aid for the world.

Water is one of the most contested resources in the world, and the geographies of water supply and demand ask crucial questions about the increasing insecurity of supplies and the conflicts that surround increasing demand and competition for water.

The importance of water in the production of food crops is a topic that is of interest to resource and population geographers all over the world.  Issue 6 of ESRC’s Society Now (p22) contained a feature about water governance, looking at some of the social and political aspects:

“One solution to the growing water crisis is addressing the growth of water-hungry crops in areas of the world where the water supply cannot meet demand. Central Asia continues to produce export cotton from plantations which have decimated the Aral Sea.  Professor Tony Allan from King’s College London was the first researcher to identify this concept of ‘virtual water’ which drains precious water resources. He devised a system for measuring how much water is used in food production and manufacturing. For example, 1,700 litres of water are needed to produce just 500g of rice.”

You can read more about the idea of “virtual water” and the challenges of competing water uses on the 21^st Century Challenges website.