Hunger and Markets is the third volume of the UN World Food Programme's World Hunger Series - created to help promote a better understanding of the choices confronting leaders as they work to fight hunger. It appears at a crucial time, with food prices at high levels, a severe global financial crisis and vulnerable households around the world endangering their future health, education and productivity by reducing both the quality and the quantity of their food intake. Hunger and Markets explores the complex and multifaceted interactions between the availability of and access to food and the operations of markets. The structure and dynamics of food markets and the threats and opportunities markets generate are crucial for the access to food for billions of people. Markets are also critical in averting or mitigating food shortages and hunger by adjusting to shocks, reducing vulnerability and coping with crises. Whether markets help or harm the hungry poor is a function of markets' institutions, infrastructure and policies. This volume analyzes the workings of markets in order to identify the sources of market failures in addressing hunger and malnutrition, and to highlight the ways in which they can be improved. The report sets out the ways in which programme design and policy formulation can build on the strengths of markets to prevent possible negative effects, and will be essential reading for all those involved in the fight against world hunger. Published with World Food Programme

Hunger and Health explores the multiple relationships between hunger and poor health, and how they affect the growth of individuals, physiologically and psychologically, constraining the development of nations both socially and economically. Examining the profound effect that hunger has on health, including disease prevention and treatment, it gives special attention to access to quality food and healthcare, in particular for the marginalized and poor. It also identifies critical junctures in the human life cycle when the benefits of reducing hunger and improving poor health have a profound impact.It demonstrates how aligning of hunger and health interventions can offer proven solutions that reach those most in need, and contains compelling evidence which confirms that hunger and poor health are solvable problems today. It encourages those involved in policy, programming and advocacy to take action to address some of the most urgent hunger and health problems. This is an essential reading for anyone concerned about eliminating hunger.It is written by the UN's World Food Programme, the world's most important food agency, supplying food to 90 million people in 78 countries in 2006 alone. It sheds light on a vital, hitherto neglected area of the hunger debate - the multiple relationships between hunger and poor health. It offers essential actions and affordable solutions for leaders to reach those most in need, make access to food and healthcare more equitable, and ultimately eliminate hunger. It contains compelling evidence on the profound impact that reducing hunger and improving health has at critical junctures in life as well as the benefits to national economies.

This report, planned to be released annually, is about working through the real-life choices and practical constraints that make it difficult to address hunger effectively. It is aimed at policy makers in developing and developed countries, and attempts to fill an important gap in existing reports on hunger. While other reports monitor trends towards international goals or serve primarily as advocacy tools, the World Hunger Series (WHS) focuses on practical strategies to achieve an end to hunger. It examines themes related to three types of risks-social and health; markets and trade; and political and environmental-that perpetuate hunger and stymie development. Each report in the new series will present state-of-the-art thinking on that year's theme, combined with an analysis of the practical challenges to implementing solutions. Based on this context, the reports will identify realistic steps to address hunger. This edition of the report examines the relationship between hunger and learning. It takes a long-term perspective: what happens at one stage of life affects later stages, and what happens in one generation affects the next. The Series has four parts. Part one, the Global Hunger Situation, surveys the current state of hunger in the world. Part two, Hunger and Learning, explores the two-way relationship between hunger and learning through the life cycle. Part three is an Agenda for Action, identifying concrete interventions to promote hunger reduction and learning. Finally, part four, a Resource Compendium, contains technical annexes and supporting data.

Hunger and Markets is the third volume of the UN World Food Programme's World Hunger Series - created to help promote a better understanding of the choices confronting leaders as they work to fight hunger. It appears at a crucial time, with food prices at high levels, a severe global financial crisis and vulnerable households around the world endangering their future health, education and productivity by reducing both the quality and the quantity of their food intake.Hunger and Markets explores the complex and multifaceted interactions between the availability of and access to food and the operations of markets. The structure and dynamics of food markets and the threats and opportunities markets generate are crucial for the access to food for billions of people. Markets are also critical in averting or mitigating food shortages and hunger by adjusting to shocks, reducing vulnerability and coping with crises. Whether markets help or harm the hungry poor is a function of markets' institutions, infrastructure and policies. This volume analyzes the workings of markets in order to identify the sources of market failures in addressing hunger and malnutrition, and to highlight the ways in which they can be improved. The report sets out the ways in which programme design and policy formulation can build on the strengths of markets to prevent possible negative effects, and will be essential reading for all those involved in the fight against world hunger.Published with World Food Programme