An Interview with Godwin Uddin
In this interview with Exceller Books, Godwin Uddin discusses his new release ‘Food Insecurity in Selected African Economies: 1940-2015’ and talks about his personal inspiration and resolve to disseminate the finding of his lifelong research about a pressing concern of Africa. He also reveals the threat the growing food insecurity poses to selected African regions and warns us of its dire consequences.
Q. What was your biggest inspiration behind writing your book ‘Food Insecurity in Selected African Economies: 1940-2015’?
A. The resolve to respond, in first place amidst other possible action plans, to the identified prevalence of food imports particularly among selected and reputed largest African economies as established from preliminary investigation.
Q. Initially, your book was meant to be written as a thesis to highlight the dark side of selected African economies from 1940-2015. Naturally, you have spent years in collating data and statistics to strengthen your research paper. But you did not stop there. You decided to go an extra mile and publish it. When and why did you actually make up your mind to publish your finding as a book?
A. The positive institutional appraisal gave birth to the resolve to disseminate the findings. Thus, the decision to be one of the voices that re-echoes stakeholders’ (industrialists, policy makers / governments, international community, etc.) collaboration either directly / indirectly in promoting agricultural sector growth in the African sub-region to respond to this ‘ticking-time bomb’ – food insecurity – recounted prevalent in the region, and to stress with caution that if not speedily / duly managed such may ‘explode’ in a manner so costly to contain.
Q. Can you share your initial experience of writing this book? Any specific challenges that you faced or assistance you got which helped you gather momentum for the work?
A. The commitment to write didn’t come easy, as all through the year had several outings to fulfill (facilitating lectures, trips, external engagements, etc.) beside study time and attendance at workshops. Continually with self-motivation for about two years, I had to re-write some earlier drafted sections and make time to improve / progress in finishing the book writing. The advice from selected mentors and continued-readiness of regional support (i.e. persons, and institutions – international organizations, media houses, etc.) are much grateful for.
Q. As opposed to research work, a book is more extensively read. Do you think this book, which started off as research, will be able to respond well to the general readers? If yes, how did you break the barrier between the specialized readers of a thesis and general audience of a book?
A. Common materials in this respect – food insecurity – are textbooks, whereas this book written as a supplemental-reading text serves students / academics / consultants / policy makers as a useful quick-read on the subject. Hence, the introductory style of presenting the discourse, to enable easy comprehension by non-specialists or early comers to the subject.
Q. Does your book have any special significance to you as a writer from a developing economy? If so, what will be your message to the wider global audience?
A. This book, as evident with its focus, is to make a case study contribution to literature on one of the salient discourse–food insecurity–in Development Economics. In brief, although the African sub-region may be considered still in her learning–phase in strive for development, so much is of the hope that could be achieved in terms of attaining her food security if she is well-motivated, well-directed, and well-focused to harness / appreciate greatly her comparative advantage.
Thank you very much for your time. We wish you every success on your journey as a writer.
2019
This interview was published with permission of the publisher. This interview may not be reproduced or reprinted without written permission of the copyright holder.
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