“Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy”: this is how writer Frances Moore Lappé opens her 2009 article on the “right to food” policy of Belo Horizonte, in Brazil. Ten years later, as more and more people in developed countries are drifting back into poverty, these words still ring true. From Brazil to Italy, from France to Scotland, a wealth of citizen-led, private and public initiatives (and often an assemblage of the three) show how vital human connections are to eradicate hunger, poverty and isolation. Read more