Food security is an increasingly critical global issue, affected by a complex and inter-related set of variables that influence the availability and access to food in each country. The political and economic stability of countries with a large proportion of the population living on less than US$1-a-day are particularly affected by food price inflation and limited availability of food stocks.
Maplecroft – the risk, responsibility and reputation specialist – has produced a global index of food security risk, which provides a quantitative assessment of the risk from lack of universal access to basic food staples in 162 countries. The unique Food Security Index (FSI) is comprised of 18 key indicators, which collectively form four sub-indices: first, the current nutritional and health status of the population, and second, the three factors which determine the intrinsic vulnerability of a country to food insecurity – availability, stability and access to food stocks. Key indicators of societal, environmental and macroeconomic risk provide a forward-looking approach to assessing food security risk.
The map highlights global hotspots of food insecurity as the countries which score in the ‘extreme risk’ category. These countries are situated predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa, with the exception of a few countries in the Americas and Asia, such as Haiti, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and North Korea. The table below lists the 15 countries most at risk of food insecurity by index score and ranking: Zimbabwe, Burundi, DR Congo, Eritrea, Yemen, Malawi, Somalia, Haiti, Liberia, Angola, Kenya, Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia.
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