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Food security

Hungry for results: improving the governance of the global food system to address structural hunger

According to the FAO, the regions with the most undernourished people are Asia and the Pacific, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Both regions have significant structural problems that lock people into poverty, limit their access to key assets, keep agricultural productivity low and make it difficult to reduce hunger on any significant scale. These structural factors must be addressed before we are likely to see any dramatic decreases in either regional or global hunger figures. John Thompson, an IDS research fellow, discusses in his blog how we could potentially reform the global food governance system and meet MDG 1 to as great a degree as possible.

Previous features: Rising food prices and farmer seed access: what are the impacts?

Latest Additions

African Agricultural R&D in the New Millennium: Progress for Some, Challenges for Many: N. Beintema / 2011; Investment in agricultural research and development (R&D) in Sub-Saharan Africa increased by more than 20 percent from 2001-08 but most of this growth occurred in only a few countries, principally Nig...
Africa human development report 2012: towards a food secure future: 2012; This report by the United Nations Development Programme explores why hunger remains pervasive in Africa, despite abundant agricultural resources, a favourable growing climate and rapid economic growth...
Tackling chronic poverty: The policy implications of research on chronic poverty and poverty dynamics: Chronic Poverty Research Centre, UK, 2011; The Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) was founded in 2000 to challenge, through research, the apparent omission of almost a billion people from the 2015 poverty target of the Millennium Developme...
Living on a Spike: N Hossain / Oxfam, 2011; The human face of global food price rises is often missing amongst the abstract discussions of macro-economic trends and global food price indices. In order to understand the impact of the rise in glo...
Human Rights Impact Assessment in the Context of Biofuels: Addressing the Human Right to Food and the Human Right to Water: H. M. Haugen / 2010; The original mandate of the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights said that he should „develop materials and methodologies for undertaking human rights impact assessments.‟ Since then...
Briefing paper presenting lessons learned from working with women smallholders on food security: R. Tripathi;K. Deering;N. Saracini / 2012; This briefing paper is the result of a collaboration between nine different agencies, sharing lessons learned from working with women smallholders in order to close the gender gap in agriculture. Desp...
The Gender Implications of Large-Scale Land Deals: J. Behrman / 2011; Large-scale land deals by investors in developing countries are generating considerable attention. However key stakeholders have so far paid little attention to a dimension of these deals essential to...
Experiments indicate no active rise from poverty without increasing agricultural productivity: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2008; No country has managed a rapid rise from poverty without increasing agricultural productivity. This paper notes that agricultural productivity in many parts of the developing world is stagnant with...
Food prices, nutrition, and the Millennium Development Goals: World Bank, 2012; This report highlights the need to help developing countries deal with the harmful effects of higher and more volatile food prices. It notes that in 2007-2008 and again in 2011, spikes in food prices ...
Adaptational farming practices can halve the increase in hunger resulting from climate change: M. Parry;A. Evans;M.W. Rosegrant / International Food Policy Research Institute , 2009; We regularly hear that agriculture should reduce its own significant greenhouse gas emissions. This report reviews current knowledge of the effects of climate change on hunger, and provides an over...