The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has partnered with the Gallup World Poll to redesign its system of measuring food security and is ready to begin testing. The new system is partially due to accusations of the FAO presenting inaccurate data on world hunger. The previous measurement of food security was based on calorie availability and was often regarded as too narrow a criterion, which resulted in the exclusion of many people who would meet the new, more extensive standards of hunger.

The new system consists of an eight-question survey in the participants’ native language and asks questions on a range of topics; particularly about if a lack of access to resources such as money had, in the past 12 months, “meant they were unable to eat enough food or healthy food, ran out of food, were forced to cut portions or skip meals altogether, or were hungry but did not eat.” Based on the responses, a participant will be placed on a “scale from mild to severe food insecurity.” The survey will be administered to 1,000 to 5,000 people per country, which amounts to over 160,000 participants worldwide.

Now that the FAO will no longer be using the 2011 statistics and will have access to more accurate measurements of food security, the organization will be able to better predict malnutrition before it occurs instead of treating it after onset.

Another way the survey benefits hunger-ridden people is by holding their governments more accountable to U.N. standards. Within the next five years, the FAO will develop standards that all governments must adhere to. The new data will also help the U.N. check on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.

The first countries to test the questionnaire system will be Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, and Angola. With proper funding, the FAO will fully adopt this technique and be better equipped to measure and prevent world hunger.

– Mary Penn

Source: AlertNet