WORLD FOOD SUMMIT PLEDGE: CAN IT BE ACHIEVED IN SOUTHERN AFRICA?

Abstract

Since 1995, global food security has become a high profile issue as a result of concerns stemming from global market liberalization that has reflected changes in policies of the major food exporting countries. Responding to these concerns at the declaration of the World Food Summit in November 1996, participants pledged “to reduce the number of undernourished people to half their present level no later than 2015” from the estimated 800 million people. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the future food security situation of 9 Southern African counties: Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Madagascar, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Baseline food consumption is projected through 2015 and the food gaps to meet minimum nutritional requirements are estimated by country. To examine the options of cutting the nutritional gap of a country by half, a consumption-income relationship was used to estimate food consumption in different income groups. The baseline projections of food consumption by different income groups were then used as a basis to estimate “distribution” food gaps under two different scenarios: targeted and county-wide policies. The paper then proceeds to evaluate the feasibility of closing the gaps by examining the performance of the factors affecting food consumption.