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Worldwide, some 1 billion people in 70 lower income countries
are food insecure, and the situation could grow worse in the poorest countries.
Ironically, most of these people live in rural areas where food
is produced. But food availability does not guarantee food security,
which depends also on the ability to buy food and to utilize it
effectively. Individual health and education levels, as well as
local conditions such as safety of the water supply, affect the
ability to utilize food effectively.
Food
insecurity can be either temporary or chronic. The broader reasons
for it are many: war, poverty, population growth, environmental
degradation, limited agricultural technology, ineffective policies,
and disease. Large-scale scarcity, however, is not on the list:
the growth rate in world food production has at last surpassed population
growth, meaning more food available per person. But this abundance
is distributed unevenly. Many low-income countries have difficulty
producing enough food and are thus food-insecure on a national level.
More common is inequality of food consumption within countries—the
result of uneven purchasing power. This problem exists in even in
the highest income countries like the United States.
At the World Food Summit in November 1996, 186 countries committed
themselves to halving the number of undernourished people by 2015.
At the "World Food Summit: Five Years Later" in June 2002,
these countries reaffirmed their commitment. Donors pledged support,
particularly for technology transfers aimed at increasing food production.
Donor countries pledged to continue providing food aid. Some regions
and countries—due in part to policy changes, stronger economic
growth, and food aid—have significantly improved their food
security situation since the 1996 Summit. This includes several
lower income countries in Asia and Latin America. Sub-Saharan Africa,
however, has seen little progress, and prospects for improvement
are not strong.
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