The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. A country can have enough food in aggregate while households go hungry, because access depends on incomes, prices, markets, social protection and conflict as much as on harvests. This page sets out the four dimensions of food security, how each is measured, and what the evidence serves for those who must respond.
GCRI · Established · service level R0
Food security is the condition in which all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. It has four dimensions: availability, access, utilisation and stability. A country can produce enough food while households go hungry, because access depends on incomes, prices, markets, social protection and conflict.
Plains, deltas and basins, the corridors that carry food to ports, and how far each division sits from one, shown for Viet Nam as an example geography for this subject.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Availability, affordability and nutrition. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
National supply from production, stocks, imports and aid sets an upper bound. Hunger occurs inside adequate national supply when food cannot reach a place or people cannot pay for it.
Most poor households buy most of their food. A rise in staple prices, or a fall in wages, remittances or livestock prices, cuts what they can buy, and diet quality is cut first.
Households skip meals, sell livestock and tools, take children out of school and borrow. Each strategy buys time and leaves the household less able to absorb the next shock.
Poorer diets, disease and inadequate water and sanitation combine into acute malnutrition, often months after the shock that started it. Mortality rises where malnutrition meets outbreaks and displacement.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Prevalence of undernourishment | The share of a population whose habitual food consumption is insufficient for the dietary energy needed for a normal, active and healthy life; SDG indicator 2.1.1. |
| Food Insecurity Experience Scale | A survey scale of eight questions about people's experience of limited access to food, used to measure moderate or severe food insecurity for SDG indicator 2.1.2. |
| IPC Phase 5 | Catastrophe or famine in the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification: households face an extreme lack of food, with starvation and death evident. |
| Cost of a healthy diet | The lowest cost of locally available foods that meet dietary guidelines, compared with incomes to estimate who cannot afford it. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prevalence of undernourishment (SDG 2.1.1) | percent of population | annual | Modelled from food supply and survey data | MODELLED |
| Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity (SDG 2.1.2) | percent of population on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale | annual | Individual and household surveys | ESTIMATED |
| Population by acute food insecurity phase | persons per IPC or Cadre Harmonisé phase | per analysis | Consensus analysis | OFFICIAL |
| Food consumption score | weighted score with standard thresholds | monthly to quarterly | Household surveys, remote monitoring | REPORTED |
| Cost of a healthy diet | purchasing power parity dollars per person per day | annual | Retail prices against dietary guidelines | ESTIMATED |
| Global acute malnutrition among children under five | percent of children | per survey | Anthropometric surveys (SMART, DHS, MICS) | OBSERVED |
| Minimum dietary diversity for women | percent of women of reproductive age | per survey | Household surveys | OBSERVED |
| Food share of household expenditure | percent of total expenditure | per survey | Household budget surveys | OFFICIAL |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| FAO Suite of Food Security Indicators | Undernourishment, food insecurity experience and related indicators by country | Free and open, attribution |
| IPC and Cadre Harmonisé analyses | Area classifications and population estimates by acute food insecurity phase | Public, attribution |
| FEWS NET | Food security outlooks, livelihood zones, seasonal calendars and market monitoring | Public, attribution |
| WFP HungerMap LIVE and VAM data | Near-real-time food consumption and coping indicators from remote surveys | Public, terms per WFP |
| UNICEF, WHO and World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates | Stunting, wasting and overweight among children by country | Free and open, attribution |
| Demographic and Health Surveys and MICS | Household diets, child anthropometry and living conditions | Free on registration, terms per programme |
| Food Prices for Nutrition (World Bank and FAO) | Cost and affordability of a healthy diet by country | Free and open, attribution |
Food Nexus prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Ministries of agriculture, health and social protection | Which areas and groups need targeted support, and whether cash, food or nutrition programmes fit best | Population by phase, market functioning and diet affordability by area |
| Humanitarian coordinators and food assistance agencies | Where to scale assistance before the lean season and how much to preposition | Outlooks with projected phases, seasonal calendars, pipeline and access constraints |
| Finance and social protection ministries | When to trigger shock-responsive transfers and how to finance them | Trigger indicators with their historical record of hits and false alarms |
| Nutrition and public health agencies | Where acute malnutrition is likely to rise and what treatment capacity is needed | Survey anthropometry, disease surveillance and diet indicators read together |
Access is where food-system failures become human harm. A shortfall that markets absorb for wealthier households can mean fewer meals, poorer diets and lasting damage to child growth for poorer ones, so the distribution of exposure matters as much as its national average. Experts therefore look past totals to the households and places that carry the burden.
Access depends on income, prices, markets and public support acting together.
Wage labour, farm income, remittances and transfers determine what households can spend. Seasonal income gaps create predictable hunger periods.
Nutritious foods such as vegetables, fruit, pulses and animal-source foods often cost more per calorie than staples, so price rises push diets toward lower quality.
Undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency and diet-related disease can coexist in the same country and even the same household.
Consumption, expenditure and dietary diversity surveys give rich detail but are costly and infrequent.
Retail price series show affordability trends; coverage of remote and informal markets is often thin.
Consensus-based classification systems combine indicators to describe severity. They depend on data quality and access, and their phase definitions should be read on their own terms.
Cost-of-diet and price transmission models, built with econometrics, estimate affordability under scenarios, with uncertainty that grows with the shock size.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.