FAO.org

The calls for action are numerous: at the United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development in September 2012, governments reaffirmed the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger. The same year, the UN Secretary General launched the “Zero Hunger Challenge” campaign to end hunger globally. The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, endorsed in September 2015, confirms the importance of achieving food security, and eradicating hunger is the second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 2). Since 1990, much progress has been made in reducing hunger. Yet, challenges to food security and nutrition remain as pressing as ever. Around 800 million people remain food insecure, although the world produces enough food to feed everyone. Food insecurity primarily affects the rural poor. Three-quarters of the world’s extreme poor live in the rural areas of developing countries. This marks not only the scope of the problem, but also identifies a territorial divide. And, not all rural areas are alike. Most rural poor and food insecure live in sub-national regions that are disadvantaged in many other ways: they lack adequate infrastructure and basic services and are more vulnerable to adverse climatic conditions. Continued population growth brings added pressure to these challenges and, through migration and urbanisation, food insecurity may also become an increasingly urban problem.

This study presents a framework for a territorial approach to food security and nutrition based on five case studies in Cambodia, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco and Peru and two national workshops held in Mali and Niger.