The Summary of Proceedings is intended to provide a concise reference to the International Scientific Symposium on Measurement and Assessment of Food Deprivation and Undernutrition in English, Spanish, French and Arabic. The complete Symposium proceedings are available in English only.
This Symposium was made possible by the generosity of the Government of the Netherlands through the FAO-Netherlands Partnership Programme. Overall inspiration and leadership were provided by Hartwig de Haen, Assistant Director-General, FAO Economic and Social Department, Jacques Vercueil, former Director, FAO Agriculture and Economic Development Analysis Division, Loganaden Naiken, former Chief, FAO Statistical Analysis Service and William H. Meyers, former Director, FAO Agriculture and Economic Development Analysis Division. Valuable contributions for the organization of the Symposium were provided by the following FAO staff: Terri Ballard, Sumiter Broca, Barbara Burlingame, Dorjee Kinlay, Jorge Mernies, Harriet Neuling, Terri Raney, Ricardo Sibrian and David Wilcock.
FAO extends special thanks to the Scientific Advisory Committee members: Marie-Claude Dop, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, France (currently FAO); Jean-Pierre Habicht, Cornell University, USA; Siddiqur R. Osmani, University of Ulster, UK; Jean Pennington, National Institutes of Health, USA; Kathy Radimer, National Center for Health Statistics, USA; Soekirman, Bogor Agriculture University, Indonesia; Walter Willett, Harvard University, USA; and Pattanee Winichagoon, Mahidol University, Thailand.
In addition, the contributions of the local organizing committee, all session chairpersons and rapporteurs, all speakers and everyone who participated in the discussions and parallel sessions are gratefully acknowledged. This was a symposium where all participants were a vital part of the outcome.
Technical assistance for the publication of this volume was provided by Terri Ballard for scientific and technical editing, Harriet Neuling and Omar Bolbol for cover design, Giuseppina Di Felice for layout design, and Jenny Riches and Chiara Deligia for logistical support.
Preface
The idea of holding the Scientific Symposium on Measurement and Assessment of Food Deprivation and Undernutrition had its origins after the World Food Summit of 1996. It was felt that bringing together those who deal scientifically with methods and applications of those methods for the measurement of hunger would greatly enhance FAO's mandate to measure and monitor progress towards the goal of halving the number of hungry by the year 2015. We are grateful for the support of the Government of The Netherlands through the FAO-Netherlands Partnership Programme that made possible the gathering of experts from many parts of the world to discuss with us this extremely important issue.
