Starting in early 2020, the global desert locust situation deteriorated as favorable climatic conditions allowed widespread breeding of the pest in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. A swarm containing an estimated 200 billion locusts was recorded in the past few months in East Africa, and each insect can eat its own weight in food. That equates to about as much food as 84 million people a day. Over 25 million hectors of cultivated areas are under threat and at least 20 million people are at risk, including the most vulnerable rural populations. The U.N. says the region is already vulnerable to food shortages, and it warns that the international community only has a small window to prevent “looming catastrophe.”

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is working together with SIT-Systematic Inventive Thinking®  to find ideas, tools and potential solutions to enable Ethiopian smallholder farmers to cope with this challenge. Come join JDC’s disaster response and international development team through a unique problem-solving method that challenges basics assumptions to create new directions for solutions.

Students will be take part of research, project design and planning both from a international development and business perspective. This opportunity is suitable for undergraduates and graduate students interested in climate change, agronomy, the humanitarian and development ecosystem, and interested in out of the box problem solving. Time commitment is up to 10 hours a week for 3-6 months. No stipend available at this time.

For more information please contact AlonGi@jdc.org.