FAO to test new food security measurement tool

"The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is about to start testing a new way of measuring food security, which it hopes will provide a more timely and precise picture of hunger around the world," AlertNet reports. "In collaboration with the polling firm Gallup, the FAO plans to collect information on the extent and severity of hunger through an annual survey of more than 160,000 respondents in around 150 countries," the news service writes (Rowling, 3/13). "Known as the Voices of the Hungry project, the new approach will be tested beginning this month on a pilot basis in Angola, Ethiopia, Malawi and Niger," as "[t]hese countries have agreed to move towards the complete eradication of hunger, in line with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Zero Hunger challenge," the U.N. News Centre writes. "Results of the surveys will be available in days rather than years, allowing FAO to take an almost real-time snapshot of a nation's food insecurity situation," the news service notes (3/13).