Given this ambitious goal, SIGHT AND LIFE invited a panel of renowned experts in nutrition, public health, agriculture, development and related disciplines to offer their opinions, insights and other contributions. Participating on the panel were high-level scientists, academics and decision makers from a range of global institutions, including UN agencies, U.S. government agencies, universities, and international NGOs. 


From left to right: Martin Bloem (WFP), Keith West (JHU), Parul Christian (JHU), Kenneth Brown (UCD/HKI), Kerry Schulze (JHU), Alain Labrique (JHU), Saskia de Pee (WFP), Akoto Osei (HKI), Lynette Neufeld (MI), Pieter Jooste (MRC), Klaus Kraemer (SAL), Sean Lynch (EVMS), Federico Graciano (SAL), Regina Moench-Pfanner (GAIN), Salahuddin Ahmad (RMIT), Arnaud Laillou (GAIN), Jane Badham (SAL)


The consultation has its roots in SIGHT AND LIFE’s efforts to develop an advocacy strategy to advance the understanding of hidden hunger, specifically in light of declarations by world leaders at the recent G8 and G20 summits to commit resources toward global food security initiatives. SIGHT AND LIFE Secretary General Klaus Kraemer cited growing attention in the lay media to the problem of hidden hunger and stressed the need to ensure consistent messages are communicated in order to maximize awareness-raising and reduce potential confusion on the issue. 

As part of its global advocacy strategy, SIGHT AND LIFE had drafted a working definition of hidden hunger and prototyped a hidden hunger global prevalence map. These were presented to the expert panel for review and input toward the ultimate outcome of endorsement and use of the advocacy definition and tools by the institutions represented in the panel. SIGHT AND LIFE emphasized that this definition would specifically be used for advocacy purposes, hence, it needed to be broad and all-encompassing but simple enough to gain buy-in from a wide range of non-technical stakeholder groups – a more technical definition to guide specific programmatic actions would be developed at a later stage. 

The global hidden hunger map was agreed to be an important tool for enhancing the current perception of hunger with a broader understanding of the impact and reach of hidden hunger, which affects more people in both developing as well as industrialized countries. Yet, many challenges remain in the development of such a map, particularly in relation to data availability, data sources, indicators, cut-offs, risk groups, and overlapping data. 

While the discussion was dominated by the technical issues surrounding an agreed definition of hidden hunger and left a number of issues open, an important discussion had nonetheless been initiated that will continue among the expert panel members, who branched into smaller working groups focusing on specific components of the discussion. Highlighting that advocacy is as important as the science, Dr. Kraemer underscored that, given the intensity of competition between ideas and messages in the scientific community, the challenge is to develop broad consensus and consistent messages that are endorsed and used by all organizations working on the problem of hidden hunger. 

He stated, “Working together on advocacy, communications and science is the new horizon.”