Joachim von Braun -- DG of IFPRI --presented the keynote paper titled: "Food Security: Emerging Issues and Challenges." He sketched a global policy perspective on FS and then hinted at the pertinent policy parameters that might apply to Bangladesh. Finally, he highlighted some promising national and global actions. Allow me to draw upon some of the seminal observations.

Maligned malnourishment
Estimates show that in 2002, there were 852 million undernourished people worldwide. Most of them live in the developing world (815 million). Half of them hail from small farms who cannot grow or buy food to meet their family's requirements. Another 22 per cent are landless rural people, 20 per cent live in urban areas, and the remaining 8 per cent depend on natural resources for eking out a living. The progress towards reducing undernourished people has been slow and -- excluding high performers China and India -- the number of the malnourished in the rest of the world hardly changed. The good news is that the percentage of undernourished people in the developing world declined almost dramatically from 28 per cent in the 1980s to 17 percent in 2002. But an uneven distribution of the reduction bears out the down-side of the so-called "success." Asia performed very well, with East Asia cutting the proportion by more than half. Latin America and the Caribbean saw very modest success, while Sub-Sahara Africa is still lying in limbo. Thus, suspicion looms large over the probability of success of the Millennium Development Goal for reducing food insecure people by half by 2015. A significant change in policies, institutions and investments, in tandem with goals set so far, could possibly stem the rot.

Scathing scores
How far the fruits of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) could be reaped home? En passant one needs to recall that the MDG had 8 goals addressed to health, nutrition and food issues based on consensus and to be carried out heart and soul in both developed and developing countries. In a rating of progress on a scale 0-10 (where 0 means no progress and 10 means full progress) of reaching the goals by 2015, available evidence tends to show that as of 2005, poverty reduction had a score of 4, followed by hunger with a score of 3, and health with 4. This implies that the world's efforts at meeting the MDG objective will need a major thrust in the years to come.

Hidden hunger
Hidden hunger due to micronu-trient deficiencies continue to pose a huge global health problem. Some two-billion iron-vitamin A- and iodine-deficient people in the developing world are reported to fail to reach their full potential and are subjected to impaired livelihoods, illness, and death. Quite obviously, women and children emerge as major victims. "In Bangladesh, iron deficiency anemia reduces gross domestic product by 8 per cent annually, due to reduced school performance and productivity." The solution to endemic hunger lies not in growing traditional food crops. Attention needs to be placed on crops of high micro nutrient density that will complement existing nutrition interventions and provide a sustainable and low cost way of reaching people with poor access to formal markets and health care system. Development and dissemination of biotechnology could claim considerations in the emerging conditions.

Benefits and costs
IFPRI research shows that reducing low birth weight, improving infant and child nutrition, reducing micro nutrient deficiencies and investment in technology to develop agriculture have the highest returns against costs. Children -- the future productive forces -- appear to be the focus that policy-makers have been haunting for interventions. Investments in agricultural technology also emerge as the key to ensuring food security.

Vulnerable and viable
The eminent economist of the world Dr. Joachim von Braun is of the view that despite being a vulnerable economy, Bangladesh witnessed progress in crucial areas like population growth, macro-economic management, market led policies and economic reforms, disaster management, and food production. But notable progress in the areas of poverty reduction, hunger, and nutrition are yet come. Still one-third of the population is undernourished and poverty reduction progressed at only 1 percentage point per year. Bangladesh attained, relatively, rice price stability through market reforms and private sector imports in the face of production short falls. One could notice that the difference between the highest and the lowest price of rice was 50 per cent during 1973-1980 compared to 6 per cent during 1981-1990. Increased food production and the growth of non-farm activities had imparted positive impacts on the poor.

Actions ahead
Joachim von Braun suggests a 7 point package to deal with hunger and malnutrition: (a) move from political rhetoric to reality on the ground through positive actions; (b) reform policies and create enabling environment; (c) increase agricultural productivity of food insecure farmers; (d) improve nutrition for the chronically hungry and vulnerable; (e) reduce vulnerability of the acutely hungry through productive safety nets; (f) make markets work for the poor; and (g) conserve natural resources.

Giving up grievous governance
Governance has a direct bearing on the level of poverty and malnutrition. On the heels of heightened hunger and malignant malnutrition, concerned countries should change their tone of governance. It is not a top down, corrupt, and unaccountable governance that would deliver the dividends from setting the MDG targets, but a change in the gear of governance should be in order. The time has come for decentralization and devolution of the decision-making process, accountability, participatory democratic process, and facilitation of the local community actions.

There is also a dire need to develop partnership among actors for cutting hunger and malnutrition. Government, civil society organizations, and markets and business should form a hunger task force to face the chiming challenge. Government expenditures and development assistance should be targeted with a focus on reducing hunger, on growth and rural development and on strengthening the mechanism for coordinated action, especially on poverty and nutrition.

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.