The Food Security Portal E-learning Platform has launched two new courses: “General Equilibrium Models – an Introduction” and “Advanced General Equilibrium Models.”

Led by IFPRI Senior Researcher Antoine Bouet, these courses will introduce participants to computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling, a powerful tool for analyzing a wide range of food policy issues at both the country and the global level.

Last week, the heads of the World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund, United Nations World Food Program, and World Trade Organization issued a joint statement calling for urgent global action on food security in response to skyrocketing global food prices.

Official Development Assistance, or ODA, provides a fundamental source of financing in the poorest and most fragile countries. Current ODA is estimated at $135 billion USD a year, but investment needs in infrastructure alone reach up to $1.5 trillion a year in emerging and developing countries according to the World Bank Group.

Data M web , created by the European Commission- Joint Research Centre, Institute of Perspective Technological Studies (Seville, Spain) thorough work with the PROGNOZ software company, provides an easy mechanism to visualize multiple datasets related to food security and nutrition.  Data M stands for Data on Agriculture, Trade, and Models, and the online data repository allows visualization in a number of ways, pulling data from a number of International Organizations (e, g., FAO and World Bank) and other relevant sources .