Food security composite indices: implications for policy and practice

Abstract

Food security is a major topic in academic and international debates. Numerous indicators have been proposed in order to establish which countries are in need of improved food security status, but the lack of consensus as to which indicator of food insecurity is the most appropriate has motivated scholars to propose composite indexes. Building composite indexes involves multiple choices. This Viewpoint warns how discretional choices of algorithms to compute composite indexes for food security may alter the findings. By commenting on the implications that different measurement choices may have in terms of global indexes, the Viewpoint raises provocative practical and political concerns.

La sécurité alimentaire est un sujet important dans les débats entre universitaires et à l’échelle internationale. De nombreux indicateurs ont été proposés afin d’établir quels pays ont besoin d'améliorer leur situation sur le plan de la sécurité alimentaire, mais le manque de consensus sur l'indicateur de l'insécurité alimentaire qui est le plus approprié a motivé les spécialistes à proposer des indices composites. L’élaboration d'indices composites suppose des choix multiples. Ce Viewpoint émet une mise en garde sur la possibilité que des choix discrétionnaires d'algorithmes pour calculer des indices composites relatifs à la sécurité alimentaire modifient les conclusions. En commentant les implications que différents choix de mesure pourraient entraîner en termes d'indices mondiaux, ce Viewpoint soulève des préoccupations pratiques et politiques provocatrices.

Actualmente, el tema de la seguridad alimentaria es ampliamente debatido tanto en los círculos académicos como a nivel internacional. Con el fin de determinar qué países deben mejorar su nivel alimentario, se han establecido varios indicadores al respecto. Sin embargo, no existe consenso sobre cuál de los mismos es el más adecuado. Por ello, varios académicos han propuesto utilizar índices compuestos, cuya elaboración implica decidir entre varias opciones. Este Punto de Vista advierte que las opciones discrecionales implicadas en los algoritmos utilizados para calcular los índices compuestos, a partir de los cuales se pretende medir la seguridad alimentaria, pueden arrojar resultados disímiles. Al examinar las implicaciones surgidas de cada una de las opciones de medición incorporadas en los índices mundiales, este Punto de Vista genera estimulantes interrogantes de índole práctica y política.

Keywords:

• Environment (built and natural) – Food security
• Aid – Development policies
• Labour and livelihoods – Economics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Fabio G. Santeramo is Assistant Professor at the University of Foggia, Italy. He has served as consultant in economics for several international organisations (FAO, CIHEAM, IFPRI). He serves as co-editor for International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics and as member of the Editorial Board for International Agricultural Policy. His area of research concerns agricultural economics, applied econometrics, and development economics.

Notes

1. The recognition was communicated in Rome (FAO HQ) on 16 June 2014 (www.fao.org/news).

2. See Economist Intelligence Unit 2013 for further information.

3. See also Pinstrup-Andersen (2009), De Haen, Klasen, and Qaim (2011), Jones et al. (2013), Calix de Dios et al. (2014), Santeramo (2015).

4. Note that if a geometric aggregation is adopted, countries with low scores on one indicator would need a much higher score on the others to improve their ranking. In this case, an efficient strategy to improve the ranking position would be to improve sectors related to the lowest scores. The opposite is true if a linear aggregation is adopted.

5. The database was released on 9 October 2012, and revised on 15 March 2013. The authors are grateful to the ESS FAO Division for providing the dataset.

6. The choice of indicators has been mostly informed by data availability with sufficient coverage to enable meaningful comparisons across regions and over the years. The database introduces a number of new indicators to fill some of the recognised gaps in food security information systems, most notably in the ability to capture the socio-economic dimensions of food insecurity. We have introduced this new information into our composite indexes for food security.

7. See Cafiero et al. (2014) for further insights.

8. Methodological details are omitted for clarity, and available from the authors.

9. Detailed information on the rankings are omitted due to space limitations. For further details, see Santeramo F.G. 2013. “A unified framework to compute FAO SO‘s scorecards.” Unpublished report.