Emerging Global Scarcities and Power Shifts

Food, energy and water are becoming more scarce and result in steady price increases that may well continue. Moreover, these scarcities are interrelated, because energy price increases and environmental concerns stimulate the production and utilization of bio-fuels that compete with food for land and water. Price increases of raw materials, energy and food also have direct consequences on developing countries. Power shifts between and within regions are the consequence of shifting money and trade flows increasing relative wealth in some countries and continents and decreasing relative wealth in others.

The essays here are based on a series of lectures organized by the Society of International Development (SID), the Netherlands. The lecture series was rounded off with a closing conference in the Dutch Senate in September 2008, organized together with the World Connectors, a Netherlands based NGO chaired by the former Dutch Prime Minister, Ruud Lubbers.