Food Insecurity in the World Strengthening the enabling environment - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

European Commission

Brussels, 16th October 2014

http://www.fao.org/publications/sofi

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Strengthening the enabling environment to improve food security and nutrition

The State of

Food Insecurity in the World

Organized in three sections: 1. Undernourishment trends around the world. 2. Beyond undernourishment: monitoring the different dimensions of food security through the suite of indicators. 3. The enabling environment to improve food security and nutrition: lessons from analysis of 7 country experiences.

The 2014 Report

• Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU): % of people

consuming an amount of dietary energy insufficient to cover requirements for an active and healthy life.

• Probabilistic model referred to a representative consumer
• Not based on a headcount as the poverty rate: individual

energy requirements are virtually unobservable

• Main limitations: complex to calculate; narrow concept of

inadequate food access (calories); not measuring short-term crises; only available at national level

• Mistakenly described as an indicator of food supply only:

combining information on food availability and food access at the macro and micro level

The Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU)

• 805 million people suffering from chronic hunger in 2012–14, down

100 million in the last decade, 209 million lower than in 1990–92.

• The vast majority, 791 million, live in developing countries.

Undernourishment around the world

1014,5 929,9 946,2 840,5 805,3 994,1 908,7 930,8 824,9 790,7 700 750 800 850 900 950 1000 1050 1100 1990-92 2000-02 2005-07 2009-11 2012-14

World Developing regions

The MDG 1c hunger target is within reach with additional efforts. The WFS goal will not be achieved. 63 countries have already reached MDG 1c 25 countries have achieved the more stringent WFS goal.

Progress towards international hunger targets

Undernourishment and Underweight: similar trends

23,4% 13,5% 11,7% 16,6% 28,0% 14,0%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 1990-92 1993-95 1996-98 1999-01 2002-04 2005-07 2008-10 2010-12 2012-14

Developing regions

prevalence of undernourishment prevalence of underweight

Progress in most regions, but uneven

Developed regions, 2.0% Southern Asia, 28.8% Sub-Saharan Africa, 17.3% Eastern Asia, 29.1% South-Eastern Asia, 13.6% Latin America and the Caribbean, 6.8% Western Asia, 0.8% North Africa, 0.6% Caucasus and Central Asia, 0.9% Oceania, 0.1%

Developed regions, 1.8% Southern Asia, 34.3% Sub-Saharan Africa, 26.6% Eastern Asia, 20.0% South-Eastern Asia, 7.9% Latin America and the Caribbean, 4.6% Western Asia, 2.3% North Africa, 1.6% Caucasus and Central Asia, 0.7% Oceania, 0.2%

Total = 1015 million Total = 805 million

1990–92 2012–14

Changing distribution of world hunger

• About 805 million people chronically undernourished in 2012–14.

Decline of 209 million since 1990–92, and of 100 million since 2000.

• Majority of hungry (791 million) live in developing countries.
• Between 1990-–92 and 2012–14, the PoU has fallen from 23.4% to

13.5% in developing countries.

• The MDG 1c hunger target is within reach, but large differences

across developing regions remain.

• East Asia, South-East Asia, Latin America & the Caribbean have

already achieved the MDG hunger target.

• LA and South-East Asia have also reached the WFS goal.
• Insufficient progress in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Oceania
• West Asia is moving away from the target.
• In total, 63 countries have already reached MDG 1c, 25 the WFS goal.

Section One: key findings

A suite of food security indicators

A suite of food security indicators

Availability: Indicators of quantity (adequacy of dietary energy supply & average value of food production), but also quality and diversity of food (share of calories derived from cereals, roots and tubers; average protein supply; average supply of animal-source proteins). Access: indicators of physical access (railway and road density); economic access (food price index, GDP per capita, food expenditure share of the poor) Stability: indicators of exposure to food security risks (cereal dependency ratio, area under irrigation, and value of staple food imports as % of total merchandise exports); incidence of shocks (food price volatility, fluctuations in domestic food supply, & political instability). Utilization: ability to utilize food (access to water & sanitation); outcomes of poor food utilization (wasting, stunting and underweight of children); micronutrient deficiencies (prevalence of anaemia & vitamin A deficiency among children; prevalence of iodine deficiency & anaemia in pregnant women)

• Availability has improved considerably over the past two decades,

BUT insufficient availability in poorer regions, notably sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia.

• Access to food has improved quickly in countries showing rapid

economic progress and poverty reduction, notably East & South-East

• Asia. Access has also improved in parts of South Asia & Latin America,

where adequate safety nets and social protection were provided.

• Utilization, despite progress over past two decades, remains the

greatest challenge, with stunting and micronutrient deficiencies remaining stubbornly high.

• Stability has shown little progress due to growing political instability

and price instability, esp. in regions heavily reliant on international food markets, such as Near East, North Africa and Caribbean.

Section Two: key findings by FS dimension

Section Two: key findings by region

• Sub-Saharan Africa: low availability, despite improved supplies of

energy and protein; poor access to food with sluggish income growth, high poverty rates and insufficient infrastructure; poor food utilization.

• South Asia: main challenge is poor food utilization as a result of poor

hygienic conditions and inadequate sanitation facilities. Access also still a problem due to large income disparities.

• East and South-East Asia: rapid progress on all four food security

dimensions over the past two decades.

• North Africa: high levels of access and availability, reflecting rises in

income levels and extensive policy interventions; persistent, albeit contained, problems of food utilization; exposure to instability.

• Latin America: high food availability; improved food access,

especially in countries with targeted social protection measures.

Section Three: strengthening the enabling environment

• 7 country reviews to help Governments design

more effective interventions

• Very different contexts and environments
• Country reviews guided by 4 dimensions needed

for enabling environment: – Policies, programmes and legal frameworks – Financial and human resources – Institutional coordination mechanisms – Evidence-based decision-making

Bolivia

• Inclusive processes and

institutions for previously marginalized indigenous peoples

• Strong focus on pro-poor

security policies resulted in rapid hunger decreases

Brazil

• Achieved international

goals including MDG and WFS hunger goals

• Progress accelerated

through Zero Hunger Programme – comprehensive approach for food security

Haiti

• Taken steps to improve

policy formulation and implementation to address multiple challenges

• Twin-track approach to

addressing food insecurity

Indonesia

• Institutionalization of food

as human right through legislation

• Strengthening of local

government capacities and decentralization improved programmes effectiveness

Madagascar

• Country now rebuilding its

capacities after political crisis

• Ambitious new sector

programme (PSAEP) and National Action Plan for Nutrition 2012-2015

Malawi

• Hunger and food

inadequacy declining since 2005 due to maize production growth

• Food security and

nutrition still challenges and constitute key priorities in national development plan

Yemen

• Transition government

taking steps to improve food security and nutrition after political unrest

• Ambitious targets set in the

National Food Security Strategy for both food security and nutrition

Section Three: Key findings

• Sustained political commitment at highest level
• Continuity of food security policies
• Effective participation of key stakeholders in policy

processes

• Adopting comprehensive strategies to increase food

security

• Improved coordination & government leadership
• Enhancing government capacities & capabilities for

designing & implementing programmes & policies

For more information …

The State of

Food Insecurity in the World

The international reference

• n global hunger issues

www.fao.org/publications/sofi

Thank you

Monitoring food security

• Food security is a multidimensional phenomenon: multiple

indicators required

• Lack of a global standard: over 200 indicators proposed
• Trade-off between “best” operational definition of food

insecurity and feasibility of the data collection

• Need to improve our ability to monitor food insecurity at the

global and national level – Post 2015 development agenda: Food security and nutrition as a separate Goal with 5 targets (“Zero Hunger” challenge)

• Trade-off between Global and National monitoring

The PoU methodology

MDER f(x) PoU

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Probabilistic approach: The PoU is based on a comparison of a probability distribution of habitual daily Dietary Energy Consumption of a randomly selected person in the population with the Minimum Dietary Energy Requirement

• Mean: mainly from Food Balance Sheets, now reconciliation

with HH surveys

• Coefficient of variation – measure of inequality: from HH

surveys; model-based when HH surveys not available;

• Skewness: from HH surveys;
• Threshold: Minimum Dietary Energy Requirement (MDER), or

sex and age range weighted average requirement

– minimum acceptable Body Mass Index -- 5th percentile for adults, median BMI for <10 years-- and Physical Activity Level =1.55

• Continuous effort to improve the methodology;

– Major revision in 2012 – Methodological refinements in 2014 – Parameters updated regularly; Improve basic agricultural statistics through a renewed initiative of statistical capacity development

Key Parameters of the Distribution

Other indicators are also problematic

• Children underweight/stunted

– Multiple causes, not only food insecurity (e.g. diseases and infections) – South East Asia paradox (higher than in SS Africa) – Information only on one segment of the population – Old data – Insufficient country coverage

• IFPRI Global Hunger Index

– Plagued by the same problems of the individual indicators

• n which it is based

– Aggregates different indicators with no clear rationale for the aggregation function – Not possible to measure progress – Ranking of countries very unstable

FAO response

• Revise its methodology for estimating the PoU
• Develop a suite of indicators to monitor the 4 dimensions
• f food security (availability, access, utilization, stability)

=> CFS mandate

• The Voices of the Hungry project: a new metric system for

monitoring food access, one of the dimensions of food security for which indicators are largely missing

The Voices of the Hungry Project (VoH)

• Establish a global standard (Food Insecurity Experience Scale - FIES) for

measuring the severity of food insecurity that allows comparisons over time, across countries and across social groups:

– A questionnaire of 8 simple yes/no questions to reveal food-related behaviors and experiences associated with increasing difficulties in accessing food – Provides a direct assessment of the adequacy of food access, a key dimension

• f food security for which proper indicators are missing

– A new metric for both households and individuals

• Provide estimates the prevalence of moderate and severe food insecurity

in 150+ countries in 2014 and 2015, and to set a benchmark against which to monitor progress at national level.

• Make available the linguistic and cultural adaptation of the questionnaire

to any interested user in more than 200 languages.

• Promote adoption of the FIES in national food security monitoring

systems, by including the module in national household surveys

VoH project: Main benefits

• People´s access to adequate food is measured directly
• Enables assessment of the depth of food insecurity (mild,

moderate, or severe)

• A sound methodology (Item-Response Theory) allows

assessment of reliability and precision of the measures

• Allows assessment of food insecurity experiences at the

individual level, thus proper analysis of gender related food insecurity disparities

• Rapid and low cost – enables timely global monitoring
• Complements other existing measures of food security
• Ideal measure for the Post-2015 Development agenda

(food access target)