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The right to food is a fundamental human right but it is one of the most frequently violated in recent times. Food security is the ability of all people at all times to access enough food for a productive, creative and healthy life. Three conditions must be fulfilled to ensure food security: food must be available, each person must have access to it, and the food utilized must fulfil nutritional requirements.
Targets set by the World Food Summit in 1996 for the reduction of hunger have largely failed, despite food production having grown faster than world population. Some 840 million people worldwide are malnourished, the highest percentage of these being in Africa.
In 2001–3 in many countries in Southern Africa, local harvest shortfalls combined with inadequate national grain stocks and slow grain imports resulted in spiraling food costs. For the large number of vulnerable people in the region, this spelled crisis. International donor and national government responses along with the timely response of the private sector and people’s own ‘coping’ strategies meant that large-scale famine-related deaths were avoided in 2002 and 2003 but unacceptable levels of chronic food insecurity remain.
Availability, access and affordability, the key elements of food security, are complex issues that encompass a wide range of interrelated economic, social and political rights, which when unfulfilled, challenge Africa’s ability to address food security.
Ultimately hunger is a political issue, which must be ended by political will.
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