Lelo Nxumalo

I recently read Dambisa Moyo's Winner Take All: China's Race for Resources and What it Means for the World. The book is a thorough review of the resource landscape - from water to land to energy, and what China's drive to acquire these means for the West and the developing world including Africa. Moyo conducts due diligence on the contentious issue of land grabs  of African farmland by states that are seeking to grow crops for food and energy as alternatives to oil. "This puts food and energy in direct competition, given that the grain required to fill a 25 gallon (95 liter) fuel tank with ethanol could instead feed one person for an entire year." Given the finite extent of arable land, Moyo, argues that the above means one thing for food prices - they can only go up! The food security picture is even more dire when we consider that of the 1 billion people that go hungry each day, a third live in Africa, yet the latter is home to much of the remaining untilled...

Yesterday I visited the War Remnants Museum in HCMC, a memorial to the losses and injustices of the Vietnam war (1955-1975). I was overwhelmed by what I learned especially regarding a chemical called 'agent orange' (see below). I took these images at the museum.

I am currently working at the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program in Ho Chi Minh City with my MPA/ID classmate from the Kennedy School. It has been a week since we started and I thought it best to collect a few thoughts about this amazing place. I decided to spend my summer in Vietnam not only to study the country's economics but also expose myself to  one of the most fascinating places on earth. Vietnam is a long S-shaped country in South east Asia bordering Laos and Cambodia to the west and China to the north. The entire eastern part of the country is coastline off the South China sea. The country comprises 63 provinces including Ha noi (the capital) and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) - the economic engine of Vietnam. Vietnam is classified as a lower-middle income country by the World Bank. The country has come a long way since the implementation of the Doi Moi ( renovation)  reforms, which initiated the process to turn Vietnam into a market economy. The authorities rec...