Download Hotspots - The UN Regional Commissions

Ensuring Food Security
in Asia-Pacific: Addressing
Threats to Development
Noeleen Heyzer
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and
Executive Secretary of ESCAP
Introduction
 High prices is a new crisis but food
insecurity and hunger are old problems
 Impact of price fluctuations is aggravated
by dysfunctional systems
 Economic, ecological and social
challenges must be addressed
 Short-term causes cannot be addressed
unless long-term underlying causes are
also tackled
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Hotspots
 583 million undernourished people in Asia
Subregions
 South Asia has 300 million under-nourished
people. East Asia and South-East Asia have 160
and 65 million
 The percentage of children underweight in South
Asia (46%) far exceeded that of countries in
Sub-Saharan Africa (29%).
 In South-East Asia 28% children underweight
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Hotspots
Countries
 Afghanistan, Cambodia and Mongolia: 35% of
population
 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, India,
Lao PDR, Philippines, Papua New Guinea and
Sri Lanka: 20-25%
 119 million hungry people live in China and 233
in India
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Hotspots
Global Hunger Index
 Nine countries classified as “serious” and 10
considered “alarming”
Serious
Alarming
Indonesia
Mongolia
Myanmar
Philippines
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Turkmenistan
Viet Nam
Uzbekistan
Afghanistan
Bangladesh
Cambodia
Democratic Republic of Korea
India
Lao PDR
Nepal
Pakistan
Tajikistan
Timor-Leste
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Hotspots
Agricultural productivity
 Nepal and Bangladesh: $100 per agricultural
worker annually (vs. $22,066 in the US)
 Mongolia’s productivity in cereal: 690 kilograms
per hectare (vs. >7,000 kgs and New Zealand)
 Rate of growth of yield (production per unit of
land per season) dropped more than half, from
2.7% over 1970-90 to 1.2% over 1990-2005.
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Dysfunctional systems
Processes: fall in food production, climate
change, demographic changes, changes in
consumption patterns, urbanization
Policies: neglect of agriculture, faulty public
distribution system, subsidy and tax policies,
residual social protection
Institutions: unequal property rights (land and
water rights), bad governance, distorted
markets, mechanisms of exclusion
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Challenges
Economic
 Increase in agricultural productivity
 Self-sufficiency and self-reliance
Ecological
 High energy prices vulnerability and biofuels
 Competing demands and decreasing water availability
 Crop losses due to climate change
Social
 Demographic changes
 Diminishing resilience
 Strengthening social protection systems
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The way ahead
 Agriculture
 Increased public investments
 Holistic policy approach;
 Complexity of food security: multisectoral
interventions
 Short-term, medium term and long term
strategies
 Responses tailored to specific countries, clusters
of countries and subregions
 Multiple levels of interventions, i.e community,
local, national, regional, global
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The role of ESCAP
 In the next six months
 High level policy dialogue (Indonesia)
 ASEAN Summit
 ASEAN-UN summit
 Theme study
 Commission Session
 Develop a framework to ensure food security in
Asia and the Pacific
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Thank you
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