1. Country typology and the implications for trade/food security linkages
Alan Matthews
Presentation to FAO Informal Consultation to identify the key issues and results on the Relationship between Trade and Food Security
12-13 March 2015, Rome

2. Conceptual issues
Food security fundamentally about the food and nutrition status of individuals or households
Framework used is Sen’s entitlements approach
Translate this approach to the national level (Stevens et al, 2014)
Countries can acquire food through various entitlements
Production entitlements reflect the food that can be produced domestically
Trade entitlements reflect the ability of a country to earn sufficient foreign exchange with exports to purchase imported food
Transfer entitlements cover food acquired either directly through food aid or indirectly by imports financed by financial aid

3. Strong interest in country classifications
Valdés & McCalla (1999), updated Valdés & Foster (2012)
Stevens (2000); Stevens et al. (2002)
Diaz-Bonilla et al (2000)
Ruffer (2002)
Kasteng et al. (2004)
Diaz-Bonilla and Ron (2010)
Yu et al. (2010)

4. Statistical issues
Data often missing for the most food-insecure countries
Fragile states, states in conflict
Wide variety of national food security indicators, which often do not tell the same story
Possibility of multi-dimensional indices (e.g. Global Hunger Index) or statistical approaches to reduce the number of dimensions
Whether we are interested in levels, or performance over time

6. Good and bad food security performers, 1995-2012

7. Example of pivot table outcome for a food security tree classified by dependence on agriculture

9. Food security performance by import dependence
Derived from share of food imports in total merchandise export earnings
Average of Prevalence of undernourishment(%)
Average of Prevalence of undernourishment
Average of Change in undernourishment prevalence, % points,
High food import dependence
27.1
20.4
-7.1
Moderate food import dependence
22.9
17.0
-5.9
Low food import dependence
18.6
13.1
-5.2
Food exporter
17.2
12.8
-4.5

10. Food security performance by trade status
Average of Prevalence of undernourishment(%)
Average of Prevalence of undernourishment
Average of Change in undernourishment prevalence, % points,
Food importers
23.0
16.9
-6.1
High food security
5.8
4.8
-1.0
Upper middle food security
15.1
11.1
-4.0
Middle food security
23.7
13.0
-10.7
Low food security
32.9
26.1
-6.8
Lowest food security
50.8
38.3
-12.6
Food exporters
17.2
12.8
-4.4
4.9
3.4
-1.5
14.9
15.6
0.6
23.9
17.0
-6.9
30.0
13.5
-16.5
40.4
33.8
-6.7

11. Similarities and contrasts
Country
Food exporter/
importer
Income status
Food security status
PUN %
Change PUN%
Indonesia
Exporter
Lower-mid
Upper-mid
15.7
-7.1
Côte d'Ivoire
13.5
7.9
Burundi
Importer
Low
Lowest
58.5
14.6
Rwanda
62.2
-33.3
Senegal
Lower.mid
Middle
26.1
-5.6
Swaziland
23.8
3.2
Malawi
33.0
-9.9
Zambia
37.4
10.0

12. Conclusions
Whíle purpose of many clustering methods is to identify similarities between countries, idea of this sequential hierarchical method is to emphasise contrasts
Purely descriptive tool, can suggest relationships, cannot draw inferences but can disprove myths
Very different food security trajectories unlikely to be explained by single variables such as trade status