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Political will for food security should be given the highest priority, yet in practice only gets modest attention. This paper attempts to address the gaps that exist. Specifically, this paper looks at:

• recent developments in global and national political relations, thinking, and related institutional changes
• the effect of such developments on the incidence of hunger
• the ability and willingness of governments to eradicate hunger
• the efforts to foster greater political will for food security.

Given the growing awareness of the above developments, the document finds that the aim should be to provide information to policy-makers in order to allow appropriate decisions to be taken, and support actions that foster and sustain political will in efforts to end food insecurity.

The paper makes a strong case for good governance and emphasises that mechanisms for policy development are key to food security. However, policy gaps remain to mobilise action, including low conflict-solving capacity, deficient legal and regulatory frameworks, limited human capital and low implementation capacities, low transparency, lack of land ownership, and gender inequalities.