Two weeks ago, G8 and G20 leaders gathered in Canada to discuss some of the most pressing issues affecting people around the world.  This year, food security was not on the leaders’ priority list of issues, but the importance of addressing the food crisis was reiterated, with world leaders renewing their commitment to food security.

Prior to the summit, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) released their report ‘Halving Hunger: Meeting the First Millennium Development Goal Through Business as Unusual’, which called on G8 and G20 leaders to keep up the political momentum towards achieving food security.

The report states that the “rather modest target” of halving hunger between 1990 and 2015 is still far off track and urges an approach of “business as unusual” is needed to reduce hunger: “smarter, more innovative, better focused, and cost-effective”. The five elements of this new approach are:

1. Invest in two core pillars: Agriculture and Social Protection, particularly in agricultural research and building infrastructure.
2. Bring in new players, including the private sector, philanthropic organisations and emerging economy donors.
3. Adopt a country-led, bottom-up approach, in which policies are adapted to the local context with local people acting as the driving force. However, issues like climate change, trade and control of disease must be addressed at a global level.
4. Design policies using evidence and experiments, to ensure only efficient and successful policy options are scaled up.
5. Walk the walk: Global, regional and national level policy makers need to see through their commitments to food security.

According to IFPRI, scaling up this “business as unusual” approach necessitates that global and national bodies both play crucial roles, but that work must be coordinated, combining their efforts to fight poverty and hunger.