IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ssefpa/v11y2019i1d10.1007_s12571-018-00884-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating trends in prevalence of undernourishment: advantages of using HCES over the FAO approach in a case study from Cameroon

Author

Listed:
  • Jean Joël Ambagna

    (Planning and Regional Development
    CIRAD
    University of Montpellier)

  • Sandrine Dury

    (CIRAD
    University of Montpellier)

  • Marie Claude Dop

    (Independent consultant)

Abstract

Global and national food security policies require a good knowledge of trends in prevalence of undernourishment (PoU). Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals might be difficult to assess if trends in undernourishment are not correctly estimated. However, methods of estimating PoU are still subject to debate. FAO Food Balance Sheets are used to measure food availability and undernourishment at country level. The aim of this paper is to compare trends in PoU using the FAO approach to that using Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys (HCES). We used FAO Food Balance Sheets and parameters, and two nationwide representative Cameroonian Household Surveys (ECAM), conducted by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) in 2001 and 2007. Our findings, based on ECAM, show that 38% and 24% of the population were undernourished in 2001 and 2007, respectively. FAO estimates were 29% in 2001 and 17% in 2007. Both approaches showed a downward trend in PoU, but ECAM results showed a greater decrease. Using ECAM enabled disaggregation of trends in PoU by area of residence and region. This, in turn, will enable better targeting of vulnerable areas and disadvantaged segments of the population. The North and Far-North regions of the country were facing major food insecurity problems at the time of the surveys.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean Joël Ambagna & Sandrine Dury & Marie Claude Dop, 2019. "Estimating trends in prevalence of undernourishment: advantages of using HCES over the FAO approach in a case study from Cameroon," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 11(1), pages 93-107, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ssefpa:v:11:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s12571-018-00884-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s12571-018-00884-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12571-018-00884-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12571-018-00884-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. United Nations UN, 2015. "The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015," Working Papers id:7097, eSocialSciences.
    2. de Haen, Hartwig & Klasen, Stephan & Qaim, Matin, 2011. "What do we really know? Metrics for food insecurity and undernutrition," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 760-769.
    3. Carling, Kenneth, 2000. "Resistant outlier rules and the non-Gaussian case," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 249-258, May.
    4. Smith, Lisa C. & Subandoro, Ali, 2007. "Measuring food security using household expenditure surveys:," Food security in practice technical guide series 3, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Borlizzi, Andrea & Delgrossi, Mauro Eduardo & Cafiero, Carlo, 2017. "National food security assessment through the analysis of food consumption data from Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys: The case of Brazil’s Pesquisa de Orçamento Familiares 2008/09," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 20-26.
    6. Smith, Lisa C. & Alderman, Harold & Aduayom, Dede, 2006. "Food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa: new estimates from household expenditure surveys," Research reports 146, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    7. Sim, C.H. & Gan, F.F. & Chang, T.C., 2005. "Outlier Labeling With Boxplot Procedures," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 100, pages 642-652, June.
    8. Ana Moltedo & Nathalie Troubat & Michael Lokshin & Zurab Sajaia, 2014. "Analyzing Food Security Using Household Survey Data : Streamlined Analysis with ADePT Software," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 18091, December.
    9. Barry Popkin & Shu Wen Ng, 2007. "The nutrition transition in high‐ and low‐income countries: what are the policy lessons?," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 37(s1), pages 199-211, December.
    10. Haile, H.K. & Alemu, Zerihun Gudeta & Kudhlande, G., 2005. "Causes Of Household Food Insecurity In Koredegaga Peasant Association, Oromiya Zone, Ethiopia," Working Paper Series 28074, University of the Free State, Department of Agricultural Economics.
    11. Kidane, Habtom & Alemu, Zerihun Gudeta & Kundhlande, Godfrey, 2005. "Causes of household food insecurity in Koredegaga Peasant Association, Oromiya Zone, Ethiopia," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 44(4), pages 1-18, December.
    12. Kazianga, Harounan & Udry, Christopher, 2006. "Consumption smoothing? Livestock, insurance and drought in rural Burkina Faso," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 413-446, April.
    13. United Nations UN, 2015. "The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015," Working Papers id:7222, eSocialSciences.
    14. Svedberg, Peter, 2002. "Undernutrition Overestimated," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(1), pages 5-36, October.
    15. Kassie, Menale & Ndiritu, Simon Wagura & Stage, Jesper, 2014. "What Determines Gender Inequality in Household Food Security in Kenya? Application of Exogenous Switching Treatment Regression," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 153-171.
    16. Svedberg, Peter, 1999. "841 Million Undernourished?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(12), pages 2081-2098, December.
    17. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12653 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:thr:techub:10035:y:2022:i:1:p:318-345 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Saada Reuveni & Bazyli Czyzewski, 2022. "How to Combine Hunger Solutions to Improve their Effectiveness: Building the Framework for a Country Profile Approach," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 35(1), pages 318-345, September.
    3. Sriroop Chaudhuri & Mimi Roy & Louis M. McDonald & Yves Emendack, 2021. "Coping Behaviours and the concept of Time Poverty: a review of perceived social and health outcomes of food insecurity on women and children," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(4), pages 1049-1068, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adeeba Ishaq & Mahmood Khalid & Eatzaz Ahmad, 2018. "Food Insecurity in Pakistan: A RegionWise Analysis of Trends," PIDE-Working Papers 2018:157, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    2. Joachim De Weerdt & Kathleen Beegle & Jed Friedman & John Gibson, 2016. "The Challenge of Measuring Hunger through Survey," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(4), pages 727-758.
    3. Osinubi, Tolulope Temilola & Apanisile, Olumuyiwa Tolulope, 2021. "Effect of Agricultural Investment On Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Role Does Institution Play?," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 9(2), April.
    4. Steckel, Richard H., 2009. "Heights and human welfare: Recent developments and new directions," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-23, January.
    5. Badrun Nessa Ahmed & Hermann Waibel, 2019. "The role of homestead fish ponds for household nutrition security in Bangladesh," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 11(4), pages 835-854, August.
    6. Ahmed Raza CHEEMA* & Zafar ABBAS**, 2016. "Determinants of food Insecurity in Pakistan: Evidence from PSLM 2010-11," Pakistan Journal of Applied Economics, Applied Economics Research Centre, vol. 26(2), pages 183-213.
    7. S. Wagura Ndiritu & Geoffrey Muricho, 2021. "Impact of climate change adaptation on food security: evidence from semi-arid lands, Kenya," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 167(1), pages 1-20, July.
    8. John Gibson, 2016. "Measuring Chronic Hunger from Diet Snapshots: Why 'Bottom up' Survey Counts and 'Top down' FAO Estimates Will Never Meet," Working Papers in Economics 16/07, University of Waikato.
    9. José Antonio Rodríguez Martín & Juan Dios Jiménez Aguilera & José Antonio Salinas Fernández & José María Martín Martín, 2016. "Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5: Progress in the Least Developed Countries of Asia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(2), pages 489-504, November.
    10. Ameye, Hannah & De Weerdt, Joachim & Gibson, John, 2021. "Measuring macro- and micronutrient consumption in multi-purpose surveys: Evidence from a survey experiment in Tanzania," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    11. Caroline Jennings Saul & Heiko Gebauer, 2018. "Digital Transformation as an Enabler for Advanced Services in the Sanitation Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-18, March.
    12. Tambo, Justice A. & Wünscher, Tobias, 2016. "Beyond adoption: welfare effects of farmer innovation behavior in Ghana," Discussion Papers 235297, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    13. Subramaniam, Mega & Pang, Natalie & Morehouse, Shandra & Asgarali-Hoffman, S. Nisa, 2020. "Examining vulnerability in youth digital information practices scholarship: What are we missing or exhausting?," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    14. Bruno F. Sunguya & Yue Ge & Linda B. Mlunde & Rose Mpembeni & Germana H. Leyna & Krishna C. Poudel & Niyati Parekh & Jiayan Huang, 2022. "Targeted and Population-Wide Interventions Are Needed to Address the Persistent Burden of Anemia among Women of Reproductive Age in Tanzania," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-12, July.
    15. Maria Sassi, 2020. "A SEM Approach to the Direct and Indirect Links between WaSH Services and Access to Food in Countries in Protracted Crises: The Case of Western Bahr-el-Ghazal State, South Sudan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-13, November.
    16. Hannah Ameye & Joachim De Weerdt & John Gibson, 2020. "Measuring Macro- and Micronutrient Intake in Multi-Purpose Surveys: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Tanzania," LICOS Discussion Papers 42120, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    17. Yong‐Shik Lee, 2020. "New general theory of economic development: Innovative growth and distribution," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 402-423, May.
    18. Leena Eklund Karlsson & Anne Leena Ikonen & Kothar Mohammed Alqahtani & Pernille Tanggaard Andersen & Subash Thapa, 2020. "Health Equity Lens Embedded in the Public Health Policies of Saudi Arabia: A Qualitative Document Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, October.
    19. Valensisi, Giovanni & Gauci, Adrian, 2013. "Graduated without passing? The employment dimension and LDCs' prospects under the Istanbul Programme of Action," MPRA Paper 86966, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Yue-Hui Yu & Man-Man Peng, 2022. "Development and Poverty Dynamics in Severe Mental Illness: A Modified Capability Approach in the Chinese Context," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-13, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:ssefpa:v:11:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s12571-018-00884-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.