It is one of the 15 technical background documents for the World Food Summit. It identifies the main categories of people for whom food assistance is necessary, and focuses on the principal means by which it can be effective. The chronically undernourished are people with low and insecure income, limited assets, few marketable skills, deficient purchasing power, and a lack of powerful advocates. Removing current hunger contributes to eradicating poverty and towards food security. And of course, for people hit by natural disasters or man-made crises, survival supersedes other considerations, and food assistance provides the only hope.
Hunger is found even amidst affluence, and in cities as well as in rural areas.
Nevertheless, hunger is more prevalent and intense in poor societies, and among less affluent people. Africa and South Asia are host to most of them. However, to the extent that they neither show the widespread incidence of malnutrition other than chronic undernutrition, nor the prevalence of seasonal or temporary food inadequacy, as well as emergency-related malnutrition, they underestimate the true scale of the task ahead. World hunger is a local problem. National governments have the ultimate responsibility of ensuring that all their citizens are food secure.