Building a global advocacy agenda

This paper frames the issues discussed during the CSA round table on Monitoring Food Security (12-13 September 2011). Its main objective is to review different methods to asses food security (including the revised FAO methodology) and to identify the evidence-base for more effective food security policies. Section 2 discusses definitions and ways to assess different forms of food insecurity. No single indicator will likely suffice in providing a comprehensive picture of the problem. Section 3 focuses on the country-level indicator that is routinely calculated by FAO and published in the State of Food Insecurity (SOFI) to measure the prevalence of undernourishment. Section 4 examines the need to enhance the capacity of countries to collect and validate basic data on production, trade and storage of food, both at national and household level. The efforts that are currently being made by FAO to assist countries in developing capacity in the field of agriculture, food and nutrition statistics are reviewed.

Technical background paper, Roundtable on Monitoring food security, CFS - August 2011