International food security assessment: Past progress and prospects through 2025

by Stacey Rosen and Birgit Meade

In 1996, the United States, the European Community, and 184 other countries gathered at the World Food Summit (WFS) in Rome and pledged to reduce the number of food-insecure people by half by no later than 2015. This declaration emphasized improving the performance of the agricultural sectors, particularly in low-income countries. To that end, there was a call for increased public and private investment in technology and its transfer, improved input distribution, greater access to land and credit, and better integration with world markets.