Assessing the impact of inequality on food security

Inequality is still rising in many countries, particularly in developing countries. Some groups become disadvantaged and discriminated against due to gender, colour or religion. All forms of inequality affect food security. Inequality is multidimensional and measured with different indicators. There is no single measure that measures the impact of inequalities on food security. A major limitation to investigating the impact of inequality on food security is the lack of direct indicators for the conditions at the individual level. A variety of approaches are available to measure inequality. These include graphical representation (for example, Lorenz curve or Pen’s Parade graph); indices (for example, the coefficient of variation, the Gini coefficient, the Atkinson’s, Hoover or Theil indexes and General Entropy (GE) measures) and ratios (for example decile dispersion ratio, Palma ratio, the 20/20 ratio). However, many inequality measures are static, focusing on monthly or annual income and temporary shocks to income, representing the situation at a particular moment. Further development of appropriate indicators and testing their validity and reliability across countries and groups is essential to improve the impact assessment and inform, measure and evaluate the impact of public policies to address inequality.