Feeding hunger and insecurity

3. households in crisis: who loses?eign aid). High food import bills will negatively impacton the balance-of-trade. In countries already runninga current account deficit, the increased costs offood imports (and for a time, oil imports) are likely toproduce or widen current account deficits, reducingforeign reserves, impacting indebtedness, exchangerates and inflation.3.1.2 Governance and Civil SocietyVery little has been reported about governance andaccountability of the state in the response to risingfood prices. Haiti’s riots in April 2008 have proventhat motivated civil society has played a role in theresponse to high food prices, forcing Prime MinisterJacques Edouard Alexis out of office after he ‘failed’to address the prevailing food crisis. A greater understandingof state-society interactions during the FoodPrice Crisis is needed – for example, were certainstates more responsive to their population than others?The capacity of governments to react to highprices and respond to the needs of its citizens mustfeature centrally in any prioritisation of interventions.Section 6.2 begins to elaborate on the importance ofgovernance-types to hunger and under-nutrition, usingevidence from India.3.1.3 GlobalisationThe last three points refer predominantly to nationalvulnerability from a state-perspective, such as macroeconomicgrowth. While these have significant longtermimpacts on citizens, national vulnerabilities canalso be approached from the bottom-up. The human,political and physical geography of a state can havemajor impacts on food prices, and livelihoods, at thelocal and household levels.Earlier research from Madagascar shows that ahousehold’s distance from a road has a strong correlationwith the magnitude of seasonal food price fluctuations(Minten 1999). Verbal reports from the WorldBank in Rwanda suggest the level of infrastructurehas had a significant bearing on the degree high internationalfood prices have translated to the domesticmarkets, while Action Against Hunger research inLiberia also stresses the relevance of infrastructureand market integration. Loverage (1991) argues thatgreater access to hard infrastructure, like roads, canallow producers to gain higher prices, provided thetransport sector is adequate.Physical constraints are also important. Landlockedcountries like the Central African Republic (see casestudy 1 below) are more insulated from high globalfood prices. This is partly because transporting foodby land is substantially more expensive than by sea.High overland transport costs result in higher pricesof imported foods and fertilisers on the domesticmarket 2 , meaning global prices represent a smallerproportion of local prices, as do their fluctuations(Arvis et al 2007). These additional transport costsalso have a ‘hidden’ environmental impact. In short,the extent of globalisation and market integration is amajor factor behind household vulnerability.FAO (2008e) argues that countries with high foodand energy import bills and large current accountdeficits are most at risk of macroeconomic instabilityas a result of high food prices – diagnosing TheGambia, Jordan, Liberia, Republic of Monrovia, Mauritania,Niger and Zimbabwe as the most vulnerablecountries to high and volatile global food prices. Thissimplistic framework permitted rapid prioritisation ofFAO interventions, but, in the long-run, more weightmust be given to other characteristics of vulnerability,of which weak civil society, poor governance andhigh levels of globalisation are only a few.3.2 Peoples at RiskNational security and economic stability are importantto long-run development and to human welfare - especiallyfuture generations. However, the most seriousconsequence of high food prices is the increasedincidence of food insecurity and hunger. Citizens ofnations such as The Gambia and Niger that havehigh current account deficits will suffer in the longrunif macroeconomic frailties are not fixed, but othersare suffering too. In developing countries, people2For a fuller explanation, see Arvis et al. 2007ACF International Network Feeding Hunger and Insecurity 13