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The paper is a synthesis of the 2017 Global Food Policy Report, and the purpose of this paper is to put into perspective the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2016 and highlights challenges and opportunities for 2017.

The paper presents an overview of recent changes in the global context for food security and nutrition, and synthesizes research findings on major issues that arise in an urbanizing world. Based on its findings, the authors present policy recommendations and areas for future research for food security and nutrition.

Urbanization is linked with dietary changes to more energy-dense diets, and, the triple burden of malnutrition is increasing, particularly in rapidly urbanizing developing countries. Rural-urban linkages are key to improving food security and nutrition in both rural and urban areas, and traditional agricultural value chains linking farms to cities are undergoing a “quiet revolution.” Governance to enhance food security in the context of rapid urbanization faces various challenges in the institutional, administrative, and political realms, especially for the informal economy in developing countries. To address the unique challenges of urbanization, policies will need to create enabling environments, promote efficient and inclusive value chains, improve governance, and promote tailored programs. Research gaps that need to be filled include better, updated, and disaggregated data on food security and nutrition, as well as an enhanced understanding of enabling environments.

The paper highlights the increasingly relevant issue of rapid urbanization, especially in developing countries, for food security and nutrition, and synthesizes recent research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to review China’s past returns in a period over the last 40 years to public agricultural and rural investments to highlight the importance for future strategic investments in China’s agri-food system and in rural areas.

The paper synthesizes research findings from previous studies and reviews more recent trends. Based on the main findings, the authors provide forward-looking guidance for China’s investments agriculture and rural areas in the context of emerging global and domestic trends in agriculture, food security, and nutrition.

Public investments in the agricultural research and development (R&D), rural education, and rural infrastructure have been shown to have significant positive returns to agricultural growth as well as to reductions in poverty and regional inequality. Returns to overall agricultural GDP were highest for agricultural R&D, followed by education, roads, and telephones. Investment in education had the greatest returns to poverty reduction, as well as to nonfarm GDP and overall rural GDP. Investment in agricultural R&D had the second greatest returns in term of poverty reduction, and was also a close second in returns to nonfarm GDP and overall rural GDP following education. The rural infrastructure spending also saw significant returns to poverty reduction, largely through growth in agricultural and nonagricultural sectors. Investments in agriculture and rural areas will continue to be important, as China and the world face emerging challenges amidst a changing global landscape, particularly regarding climate change, rapid urbanization, nutritional imbalances, and food safety concerns. In addressing these emerging challenges, continued support for agricultural R&D and innovations can play a key role.

The paper highlights research findings on key investment areas that will be increasingly important for China’s agri-food system, and provides guidance in the context of emerging trends impacting food security and nutrition.

The purpose of this paper is to set the stage for the proceeding articles with background of the impressive yet incomplete progress made in eliminating hunger and malnutrition in China and India.

The paper provides background of the progress and challenges to achieving food security and nutrition in China and India. It then highlights the lessons learned from this special issue, and concludes with remaining knowledge gaps.

The paper summarizes findings from each article in the special issue.

Comparing the experiences of these two countries is essential to share knowledge and accelerate progress in eliminating poverty, hunger, and malnutrition both within these countries and globally.

The winter 1991 issue of Reference Services Review featured an annotated bibliography of literature on Christopher Columbus from 1970 to 1989. That literature covered such topics as Columbus' ancestry, heraldry, and the locations of both his American landfall and burial site. This annotated checklist focuses mainly on Columbus' legacy, on works that offer a dissenting point of view from most previous writings about Columbus (and on works that react to the dissenters), on material written by Native American and other non‐European authors, and on materials published by small and noncommercial presses.

The INTERNATIONAL LUBRICATION CONFERENCE was held at Liege on May 6th to 8th in conjunction with the Liege Fair, organised by the Association des Ingenieurs Sortis de l'Ecole de Liege. We shall give in this, and future issues, the salient points from several of the important papers presented there. We hope also to be permitted to publish these papers in English, in book form, in due course. The specialised Lubrication Exhibition was held at the same time as the International Fair for Mining, Metallurgy, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in the centre section of the exhibition's main hall. Here visitors were able to compare design and operational features of lubrication equipment designed in Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, U.S.A. and the United Kingdom. British exhibits compared well, not only in numbers, but also in design and quality with the excellent equipment produced elsewhere.

The world stands on the threshold of a tantalizing opportunity: the possibility of a sustained economic boom over the first decades of the next millennium. This article outlines the confluence of forces – particularly the transition to a knowledge society, the emergence of a global economy and the pursuit of environmental sustainability – which could come together to propel huge improvements in wealth‐creating capacity and wellbeing world‐wide. The transition to a knowledge economy and society over the next few decades opens up the possibility of massive productivity gains. Equally significant, stimulus for a long boom could emerge from the creation of much more deeply integrated global markets for goods, services, capital and technology. Finally, the long boom could be sustained by a cooperative push to redirect the path of humanity’s relationship to the environment – a change entailing massive investments in new, less resource‐intensive patterns of consumption and methods of production. The unleashing of these dynamic forces hinges on two basic policy thrusts. First, economic dynamism in general and a long boom in particular will demand exceptional efforts – nationally and internationally – to encourage continuous innovation and high levels of investment. Second, with the prospects for a long boom contingent on the realization of a leap in the levels of international cooperation, decision makers will have to consider bold new approaches to negotiating and reconciling conflicting interests and divergent needs.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

The research presented here contributes to our understanding of strategic planning and its relationship to performance in nonprofit organizations. Based on a sample of 303 nonprofit organizations, the study emphasizes individual and diverse elements of the planning process. Multiple measures of performance highlight a nonprofits need to garner resource contributions from several constituencies. Using factor analysis and canonical correlation analysis, we find a positive association between scope of planning and executive satisfaction and a negative association between administrative informality and volunteer involvement. Our results suggest that two critical resource contributors, executive directors and donors, may not value formalized decision-making and planning to the extent previously assumed.

Books and periodicals on aeronautics: A buying list

This descriptive study of 184 small firms identified strategies most frequently used by their managers. These strategies were identified using the Entrepreneurial Strategy Matrix, a situational model in which the identification of levels of innovation and risk lead to prescriptions of appropriate strategies. Concurrently, this model was empirically tested and its validity supported. Of the strategies used, the five most common were: “work to create a competitive advantage,” “maintain innovation,” “lower the costs of developing and/or maintaining one’s venture,” “defend product/service as it is now,” and “create a first mover advantage.” In addition, there were no differences between the use of strategies by entrepreneurs in service and manufacturing industries.