Voices of the Hungry A worldwide survey of

Transcript:Voices of the Hungry A worldwide survey of:
Voices of the Hungry A worldwide survey of people’s experience with food insecurity Background & Motivation FAO has the mandate to monitor progress towards the achievement of the hunger target of MDG 1 and the WFS target Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU) as a measure of the extent of chronic food deprivation (Official MDG Ind. 1.9) FAO food security monitoring: a long history ... World Food Surveys (1946, 1952, 1963, 1977, 1987, 1996) The State of Food Insecurity in the World (1999 - 2013) ... always debated FAO International Symposium 2002 CFS Round Table 2011 Yet another FAO International Symposium 2012 Background & Motivation Monitoring food security worldwide is a challenge: 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/sustainability of the data collection Global monitoring: need for comparable data across countries on an annual basis with limited time lag National monitoring: need for disaggregated data to identify vulnerable groups and vulnerable areas as well as possible determinants in order to support policy interventions (annual monitoring not needed and too costly) MDG 1.9 = Proportion of population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption Probabilistic model referred to a representative consumer: Probability that a randomly selected individual regularly consumes an amount of calories insufficient for conducting an active and healthy life Main limitations: very complex to calculate; narrow concept of inadequate food access (calories); not measuring short-term crises; only available at national level Not based on a headcount as the poverty rate: individual energy requirements are virtually unobservable 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) Background & Motivation Other indicators are also problematic: Children underweight/stunted Multiple causes, not only food insecurity (e.g. diseases and infections) South East Asia paradox (prevalence higher than in SS Africa) Information only on one segment of the population Similar problems of timeliness Additional problems of coverage IFPRI Global Hunger Index: It is plagued by the same problems of the individual indicators on which it is based (PoU, Child underweight, Child mortality) Aggregates different indicators with no clear rationale for the aggregation function Background & Motivation Need to improve our ability to monitor food insecurity at the global and national level Food security and nutrition has