Food Security Measurement Guide

Food security-access by all people at all times to enough food for an active healthy life-is an important objective of every nation. The Declaration begins with this commitment:We pledge our political will and our common and national commitment to achieving food security for all and to an ongoing effort to eradicate hunger in all countries, with an immediate view to reducing the number of undernourished people to half their present level no later than 2015. Reliable and adequately detailed information about the food security of a nation's population is essential for the development of policies and programs to reduce food insecurity and hunger. One tool that can provide this information is a household food security survey with a series of questions about behaviors and experiences that are known to characterize households having difficulty meeting their food needs. The food security questions are included in a survey of a representative sample of the population of interest. Appropriate statistical methods are used to combine responses to the selected questions in order to create a scaled measure of household food security.