Validity and reliability of food security measures

Abstract

This paper reviews some of the existing food security indicators, discussing the validity of the underlying concept and the expected reliability of measures under reasonably feasible conditions. The main objective of the paper is to raise awareness on existing trade-offs between different qualities of possible food security measurement tools that must be taken into account when such tools are proposed for practical application, especially for use within an international monitoring framework. The hope is to provide a timely, useful contribution to the process leading to the definition of a food security goal and the associated monitoring framework within the post-2015 Development Agenda.

Cuestiones Ambientales y Seguridad Alimentaria en el Cantón Guano, Ecuador

“…En este sentido, Friant (2016), presenta resultados de niveles de seguridad alimentaria mundial que indican que el 52,8 % de los hogares están seguros, 23,3 % con inseguridad leve, 14,3 % con inseguridad moderada y 9,6 % tienen una inseguridad alimentaria grave. En esa línea, Cafiero (2014), expresa la posibilidad de establecer un estándar mundial para medir la inseguridad alimentaria en los hogares y la población. A pesar del crecimiento poblacional, el incremento proyectado de la productividad agrícola para aumentar la producción de alimentos en un 70 % para el 2.050, se proyectan mejoras en la seguridad alimentaria (Ghose 2014).…”

A reweighting approach to robust clustering

“…Details on how this was performed are given in Cafiero et al (2016). A more general discussion is provided in Ballard et al (2013);Cafiero et al (2014).…”

Food security composite indices: implications for policy and practice

“…However, while Chile, China, and Morocco have won recognition from FAO for their outstanding progresses to reach elevated food security standards, scholars are animatedly debating on how to measure (and improve) food security status. 1 As pointed out by Barrett (2010) and Cafiero et al (2014), numerous metrics and indicators for food security have been proposed and it has been recognised that the existing indicators are not equivalent, but convey different information on food security. First-and second-generation metrics have focused on the determinant and outcomes of food security.…”

“…Linguistic issues and sampling designs may lead to the metric not being representative of a particular country context. Both challenges undermine the validity and the reliability of EBSs (Cafiero et al 2014), limiting the potentially high empirical relevance of these indicators.…”

“…the Global Food Security Index, 2 the Global Hunger Index, the Poverty and Hunger Index, etc.). Excellent reviews on existing indicators were undertaken by Barrett (2010) and Cafiero et al (2014): the latter provides indication on the validity and reliability of metrics for food security. 3 The general lack of consensus as to which measure/tool/indices of food insecurity is the most appropriate to capture such a multidimensional phenomenon calls for further research.…”