Latest available figures indicate that close to 40 per cent of the world’s population suffering from hunger and malnutrition belongs to South Asia. Remarkable strides towards enhancing food production in the recent decades in the region seem to have limited impact on undernourishment that remains pervasive.

This report has been prepared in response to growing concerns about the impacts of climate change on Latin American economies, agriculture, and people.

With the world’s population expected to reach 8.2 billion people by 2030, and with 842 million people estimated as having been undernourished in the period 2011–13, food supply will present a growing challenge in the next two decades.

Based on forecasts of global population growth, food security will remain an important economic development issue over the next several decades. Real food prices have risen in recent years after decades of decline, bringing the issue of food security even further into the public spotlight.

In February 2008 and September 2010, the cities of Maputo and Matola were the scene of violent protests against the rise in the cost of living, undertaken by groups of ordinary citizens.

In 2010 Kenya enacted a new constitution that brought into law a range of progressive economic and social rights including the legal entitlement of its citizens ‘to be free from hunger, and to have adequate food of acceptable quality’ (Republic of Kenya 2010).

Can popular mobilisation activate accountability for hunger? In 2012, a group of researchers set out to explore this question through field research in four countries: Bangladesh, India, Kenya and Mozambique.

This report synthesises the findings from the four country case studies produced for the project. It is intended as a summary introduction to the main findings of the research, and a preliminary comparative analysis across the four cases.