In 2009, high and volatile food prices combined with economic recession posed significant risks to poor and vulnerable households, with often dire consequences for their food security.

The recent food crisis, combined with the energy crisis and emerging climate-change issues, threatens the livelihoods of millions of poor people as well as the economic, ecological, and political situation in many developing countries.

During the past two-and-a-half decades, China and India have implemented a series of economic reforms that have led to recent growth rates of 9-11 percent per year in China and 8-9 percent per year in India.

"During the past several decades, developing countries have had mixed results in reducing poverty.

Recent trends in agricultural growth and food security in Eastern and Central Africa (ECA) have been discouraging.

For many years, governments and donors have promoted the generation of knowledge and technological innovations that improve farming and plant genetic resources in developing countries.

Meeting the food needs of the world’s growing population while reducing poverty and protecting the environment is a major global challenge.

This brief is based on Information and Communication Technologies for Development and Poverty Reduction: The Potential of Telecommunications, ed. Maximo Torero and Joachim von Braun (Johns Hopkins University Press and IFPRI, 2006)

En sus primeros dos años (2000-02), el programa de la Red de Protección Social-Ministerio de la Familia (RPS) ayudó a mejorar la nutrición y educación de aproximadamente unas 10.000 familias de las más pobres del país.

The development community is increasingly in agreement that providing adequate hard infrastructure (i.e., capital-intensive infrastructure such as rural telecommunications, electrification, and rural roads) is an important step in the process of a

"Policies built on presumptions of separateness or on traditional notions of urban and rural livelihoods diminish the possibilities for economic growth and poverty reduction.

While famines and other episodes of severe hunger receive significant press coverage and attract much public attention, chronic hunger and malnutrition are considerably more prevalent in Africa.

"In Africa and elsewhere, safety nets were promoted in the 1980s as a response to the (presumably short-term) adverse effects of structural adjustment.

What can be done to increase the effective participation of women in food and nutrition security in Africa? This brief advocates a two-pronged approach.

"Advocates of reforms in land rights and land markets frequently posit two important hypotheses: (1) African countries must grant land titles to farmers because titles increase land tenure security and facilitate access to input, land, and fi

"The premise of a rights-based approach to ensuring adequate food is empowering poor people and those who are food insecure.

Wealthy countries’ agricultural subsidies have also created unfair competition.

Wealthy countries’ agricultural subsidies have also created unfair competition.

In more than a dozen African countries the rate of undernourishment is more than 40 percent, exceeding 50 percent in those countries experiencing or emerging from armed conflict.