What is Prevalence of Undernourishment (%)

Food security has emerged as one of the most significant and complex challenges of the twenty-first century. The region has made impressive achievements in reducing poverty and hunger in the past two decades, driven by impressive economic growth and rising incomes over the last few decades. This progress has however been uneven within and across states, and the region remains home to over 60% of undernourished people in the world. The objective of the chapter is to examine the status of food security of Asian economies. For that purpose, we have assessed and taken into account food security situation according to various indicators across different regions of Asia as well as average food production as indicator of food security for our analysis. We then endeavor to find whether there is any convergence of average food production across Asian countries. Lastly, we have tested whether average food production is a significant determinant of undernourishment for Asian countries. The results reveal that there is no convergence in average food production in Asia. However the panel regression exercise reveals that there is significant relationship between food security and undernourishment.