Food insecurity, gender, and the financial crisis

Oct 21st, 2009 6:30 PM UTC
By Beth Adler

Last week the 2009 Global Hunger Index, published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerlife, and Concern Ireland, was released. The Global Hunger Index (GHI) takes a broad look at food insecurity by examining three indicators: the percentage of undernourished people in the population, the percentage of underweight children under five, and the mortality rate of children under 5. Countries receive a score on a scale from 1 to 100 where 1 means that there is no food insecurity and 100 means that everyone is suffering from undernourishment. A GHI score between 10 and 19.9 means a country has a serious food security problem, 20 to 29.9 means the problem is very serious, and above 30 is an extremely grave food security situation. The worst performer, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) scored 39.1.

The results for Africa are serious, demonstrating high levels of food insecurity:

• Only African countries score above 30: Ethiopia, Chad, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Burundi and DRC.
• The report also measures progress since 1990. The countries where food security is now worse than in 1990 are: North Korea, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, DRC, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, The Gambia and Madagascar.
• Across the continent the food situation is now better than in 1990—the score improved by 13% (from 25.4 – 22.1); however all other world regions improved faster than sub-Saharan Africa.

The report notes that in countries with high scores, war and violent conflict have spurred poverty and food insecurity. The report also correlates the Gender Gap Index with food insecurity and finds that high rates of hunger are strongly linked to gender inequalities, particularly in literacy and education, and the exclusion of women from health services. The message here is: educating girls and allowing women to access health services will enable them to produce and/or access more food for their families and thus increase food security in the household.

The report discusses the financial crisis as well. Working in tandem, the food price crisis and then the global financial crisis decreased food security: the food price spikes made food more expensive, which meant that many families could no longer afford food, but could also have led to increased investments in food production. However, once the financial crisis hit, investors withdrew their financing, leaving viable investments unimplemented.

Having all of this information is a crucial step towards ensuring global food security, as Joachim von Braun, IFPRI director general commented, “Knowing that hunger and gender inequality go hand-in-hand, an important step to ending world hunger is empowering women and eradicating gender disparities in education, health, economic participation, and political opportunities. After decades of slow progress in the fight against hunger, child malnourishment is now on the rise due to recent economic developments. It is imperative that commitments made at the G20 and other global policy meetings are swiftly transformed into real action in cooperation with developing countries.”

The report also contains an interactive map of the Global Hunger Index, which you should check out:

TAGS: Food Security in Focus, Policy News, Women and the Economy