Food Security and Nutrition

The 2013 Global Hunger Index (GHI) report—the eighth in an annual series—presents a multidimensional measure of national, regional, and global hunger. It shows that the world has made some progress in reducing hunger since 1990, but still has far to go. World hunger remains “serious,” and 19 countries suffer from levels of hunger that are either “alarming” or “extremely alarming.”

Although food security measurement has been substantially expanded in recent decades, there persists significant dissatisfaction with existing measurement systems, especially in the wake of the global food and financial crisis. In this paper we first set out a list of criteria that an ideal food security measurement system should satisfy. We then benchmark existing indicators and measurement systems against those criteria as a means of systematically identifying their relative strengths and weaknesses.

Ethiopia's Food Security Programme provides income transfers through public works in its Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) as well as targeted services provided through the Other Food Security Programme (OFSP) and, later, the Household Asset Building Programme (HABP) designed to improve agricultural productivity. There is a trade-off in these two types of transfers between short-term improvements in food security and longer term food security achieved through increased agricultural productivity.

This report documents progress in the implementation of the Productive Safety Nets Programme (PSNP) and the Household Assets Building Programme (HABP) and assesses trends in perceptions of the effectiveness and transparency of the PSNP and HABP among different groups of clients. It also describes how living standards are evolving in PSNP and non-PSNP beneficiary households.

In 2010, 16% of people in developing countries were undernourished; way above the 10% target set by the Millennium Development Goals. This poor result calls into question food security policies, which are often based on macroeconomic indicators.