October 18, 2013
Foreword
In 2012 Tropical Storm Isaac and Hurricane Sandy battered Haiti, damaging harvests, swelling rivers, flooding roads, and blocking access to communities. As food prices rose and debts mounted, poor Haitians took extreme measures. Some migrated. Others made ends meet by eating fewer meals per day and selling off their land or livestock. Every summer, Haitians fear nature’s wrath.
Whether it’s storms like these, or a drought, like the one in 2012 that left 18 million people in the Sahel hungry, other extreme weather, surging food prices, or prolonged political unrest, crises or shocks continue to buffet the poor and most vulnerable. All too often, those who are unable to cope find themselves more deeply entrenched in poverty, facing malnutrition and hunger.
It has become clear that it is not enough to help the poor and vulnerable survive short-term shocks. Because they are among those hit hardest by shocks and least able to cope, the constant exposure to manmade or natural shocks means they find it hard to improve their lot. Poor and vulnerable populations need more resilience, and a vital part of building resilience involves boosting food and nutrition security. Given that access to enough healthy food is a basic human right, it is critical that governments and nongovernmental and international organizations take steps to build resilience in a way that increases their food and nutrition security.
Resilience is the central theme of the 2013 Global Hunger Index report, published jointly by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Concern Worldwide, and Welthungerhilfe. Given that world hunger remains “serious,” according to the index, with 19 countries suffering from levels of hunger that are either “alarming” or “extremely alarming,” resilience-building efforts are much needed to boost food and nutrition security.
Chapter 03 describes a framework for resilience that could change how the development and humanitarian sectors design and implement interventions. It also offers examples of resilience-building programs that combine relief and development and explores indicators for measuring resilience in relation to food and nutrition security. Chapter 04 spotlights lessons learned from several programs carried out by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe that were designed to build resilience in communities.
This is the eighth year that the International Food Policy Research Institute has calculated the Global Hunger Index (GHI) and analyzed this multidimensional measure of global hunger. This series of reports records the state of hunger worldwide, by region and by country, spotlighting the countries and regions where action is most needed.
It should be noted that this report paints a picture of the recent past, not the present. The 2013 GHI reflects the most recent data available from governments and international agencies. Because of time lags and the dearth of up-to-the-minute data on global hunger, it does not, however, reflect the impact of the latest events. We hope that governments and international institutions will collaborate to gather more timely and comprehensive data on hunger in the near future.
The world has made some progress in reducing hunger since the early 1990s. If the recent slowdown can be reversed, the Millennium Development Goal target of halving the share of hungry people in the world between 1990 and 2015 may be within reach. But we are not on track to meet the 1996 World Food Summit’s more ambitious goal of halving the number of hungry people in the same time period. In 1990–1992, 1 billion went hungry. Today, about 870 million, or 1 in 8 people worldwide, still suffer from hunger. This is no time for complacency. In 2012 during the Rio+20 conference, to build upon the work started by Millennium Development Goal 1, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon proposed a more ambitious goal, the global “Zero Hunger Challenge” to end hunger in our lifetime. As long as people go hungry, the fight against hunger must continue.
Many of the shocks and stresses to which poor and hungry people are exposed are caused by the actions of more affluent regions and countries. We hope that this report will serve as a reminder to all of us—in industrialized countries, as well as in emerging economies and developing countries—to assume responsibility and to act together to reduce risk and build resilience to food and nutrition insecurity at the community, national, and international levels.
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