Eradicating hunger: moving from pilot projects to national programmes

This paper discusses issues which developing countries may wish to consider when deciding to expand food security programmes to a national scale, in response to their commitments at the 1996 World Food Summit.

The author notes that if fast progress is to be made in hunger reduction, this will normally require simultaneous large-scale action along two main tracks. The first track involves creating opportunities for food insecure people to make sustainable improvements in their livelihoods wherever this is possible. The second track must ensure immediate access to adequate food for those who cannot in the short term acquire the means either to produce or to purchase the food needed for a full and healthy life.

However the challenge is to translate these concepts into programmes which match the scale of the hunger problem, which respond to the urgency of addressing the needs of the hungry and which are fiscally affordable for poor countries.

Whatever the starting point and strategic goal, successful national food security programmes should necessarily have several common features, including:

• strong and visionary leadership which makes the elimination of hunger a truly national goal, in the attainment of which all citizens feel that they can play a part.
• good governance, economic and social stability, and peace
• the full engagement not only of governments but also of civil society institutions within alliances whose members combine forces to work jointly on an interdisciplinary basis to undertake very practical actions towards eradicating hunger
• a supportive policy and legal environment which addresses such issues as subsidies, tariffs, exchange rate, decentralisation and access to land and water resources, as well as the right to food
• a monitoring and evaluation system, able to generate reliable information.

[adapted from author]