George Kent is Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawai’i. Professor Kent is Co-Convener of the Commission on International Human Rights of the International Peace Research Association, and he has worked as a consultant with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Children's Fund, and several civil society organizations. He is part of the Working Group on Nutrition, Ethics, and Human Rights of the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition.

In his new book, Ending Hunger Worldwide, to be launched at the IPRA conference, George Kent explores and advocates for a different understanding of globalization.

Many people understand globalization mainly in terms of international commerce, dominated by the powerful. On balance the benefits of market-centered globalization favor the powerful. There is another trend, less widely recognized, described as globalization from below. This is based not so much on the exchange of goods as on the exchange of ideas. Much of it is highly political, making extensive use of the Internet and inexpensive travel to build global solidarity among like-minded people.

This alternative perspective has taken hold in debates about how to deal with the widespread malnutrition in the world. With the number of people in the world who are hungry actually going up in recent years, and now exceeding one billion, there is increasing recognition that the top-down models for dealing with hunger have not worked. The repeated variations of world food summits have not helped to solve the problem. There are now increase calls for food sovereignty, and for recognition of the human right to adequate food.

World Affairs,