COMCEC Agriculture Outlook 2018
38
Figure 32. Undernourished People in the OIC by Sub-Regions
Source: Annex 38
3.2. Access
World Health Organization defines the food access as having sufficient resources to obtain
appropriate foods for a nutritious diet.14 Access dimension of food security is fully met when all
people in a country have all adequate resources needed to acquire sufficient nutritious and safe
food. Therefore, the concept of food accessibility encompasses several issues such as
affordability of individuals to purchase foods, distribution of income and consumption,
existence of nutritious goods in nearby grocery stores, sufficient and convenient transportation
nets to reach local food retailers.
In the FAO study of food security indicators, the access dimension of food security is measured
by various indicators such as percent of paved roads over total roads, road density, rail lines
density, gross domestic product per capita, domestic food price index, prevalence of
undernourishment, share of food expenditure of the poor, depth of the food deficit, distribution
of consumption and prevalence of food inadequacy.15
Two of the most important indicators of access are the average level of income and the
distribution of the income in a country. In this section we present two such indicators, namely
GDP Per Capita, Food Prices, and Calorie Consumption Distribution.
14 WHO, 2015
15 FAO, 2015b
53,90 50,90
62,10
24,00 26,70
38,70
121,00 123,90
99,40
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
1999-2001 2004-2006 2014-2016 1999-2001 2004-2006 2014-2016 1999-2001 2004-2006 2014-2016
African Group Arab Group Asian Group
Million People