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From September 26-27, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) held its Fourth Ministerial Meeting on Food Security in Piura, Peru. Participants included Ministers and Heads of Delegation from all 21 APEC economies, as well as representatives from FAO, IFPRI, and the International Potato Center (CIP).

FAO’s third 2016 Crop Prospects and Food Situation Report was recently released. The report is published four times a year and provides a review of the food situation by geographic region and includes a section dedicated to the Low Income Food Deficit Countries (LIFDC) and a list of countries requiring external assistance for food.

The agricultural sector employs 60 percent of women in Oceania, Southern Asia, and Africa south of the Sahara and 80 percent of women in Least Developed Countries. Despite women’s large role in agriculture, however, there remains a global gender gap in access to resources and agricultural productivity. As a result of this gender gap, male and female farmers in developing countries have different abilities to adapt to climate change, climate variability, and weather-related shocks.

Africa’s population is expected to continue to grow rapidly, reaching 2 billion by 2050. In order to combat the region’s already high levels of malnutrition and meet future food demand, Africa’s agricultural production and productivity (which is low by global standards and further threatened by climate change) will need to grow significantly. In addition to these challenges, Africa is also experiencing an economic slowdown, partly caused by a decrease in global prices for African export commodities. This is hampering efforts to meet food security and poverty reduction targets.

An abridged version of this post appears on the IFPRI.org blog .
Over the past 25 years, many developing countries have experienced rapid economic growth, which has contributed to a dramatic drop, from 37 percent to 10 percent, in the worldwide extreme poverty headcount. But that growth is now slowing, and that means trouble for the international community’s first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ending poverty in all its forms by 2030.