 A review of hunger indices and methods to monitor country commitment to fighting hungerFood Policy, 2011, vol. 36, issue S1, S102-S108 Abstract: Several indices measuring hunger and progress in achieving hunger eradication have been proposed in the literature. This paper reviews existing hunger indices and critically assesses their quality against a number of desirable properties. Hunger indices are found to be unsatisfactory in a number of ways: they ignore distributional issues; they neglect the occurrence of food and health shocks; and are sometimes based on unreliable data. Anthropometric measurements, stunting in particular, emerge as powerful indicators of hunger and are ideal for addressing a number of policy relevant issues. The paper also introduces a conceptual framework for an index measuring country commitment to fighting hunger. The constitutive elements of this index are illustrated: political will, anti-hunger policies and programmes. Suggestions are made on how a commitment index can be built and what are the data requirements. Keywords: Hunger; Index; Food security; Anthropometry; Commitment; Political will (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:36:y:2011:i:s1:p:s102-s108 DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2010.11.007 Access Statistics for this article Food Policy is currently edited by J. Kydd More articles in Food Policy from Elsevier |
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