Feeding hunger and insecurity

1. Introductionto decline in many developing countries, despitefalling on the international commodity markets.Context is crucial. Not all governments, countriesand people have been affected equally.Vulnerability of people depends predominantlyon integration into the global market, wealth (interms of income and assets) and their positionas a net food seller or a net food buyer. Variationof vulnerability extends beyond the national leveland can be visible even within a small, localisedarea.To date the international response to high and volatilefood price has been ineffectual. The successfulcampaign of WFP in early 2008 to compensate fortheir falling purchasing power on the internationalfood market shows that food aid remains the onlylarge-scale intervention supported by the internationalcommunity – ironically, also the most dependenton the international price of food. The internationalcommunity must respond now if it is to avoid a potentialcrisis of poverty and malnutrition. Action AgainstHunger urges donors to provide the necessary fundsto immediately establish a pilot intervention to comprehensivelytackle high prices and malnutrition infive priority countries.Despite no clear increase in severe malnutritionon a global scale, high prices have consistentlyforced families to adopt damaging coping strategiesto maintain staple food consumption. Thesecoping mechanisms are virtually identical tothose employed by households during the ‘hungerseason’. ‘Seasonality’ shows that this canhave long-term implications for poverty, vulnerabilityand malnutrition.These findings must be acknowledged when designingadequate interventions. The importance of localcontext urges organisations and governments toavoid a blanket response and target specific needsand vulnerabilities, where possible. The similarity ofhousehold responses to high food prices and seasonalprice fluctuations is both worrying and encouraging– many counter-seasonal interventions havehad proven success in recent years and can bequickly budgeted into national and international actionplans.4ACF International NetworkFeeding Hunger and Insecurity