Tom Arnold, chief executive of aid agency Concern Worldwide and chair of the European Food Security Group, a network of 40 NGOs, says money alone can't solve the world's food problems.

Global food security is a political and economic priority for the first time since the early 1970s. That should be the key message from the decision by the G8 group of leading economies to endorse a 'food security initiative' at their meeting in Italy this week. But this welcome decision needs to be followed up by further significant policy change at national and international level if food security is to be achieved for the world's growing population over the coming decades.

The food price crisis in early 2008 pushed food security back on to the political agenda. Rocketing food and energy prices led to food riots in over 30 countries. This, plus the wider global economic crisis, has increased the number of hungry people in the world from 850 million two years ago to over 1 billion today.

The initial response to the food price crisis last year was positive. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon set up a High Level Task Force (HLTF), bringing together the heads of U.N. agencies dealing with food security. A meeting in Rome sponsored by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in June 2008 agreed a Comprehensive Framework for Action - a set of short and longer-term measures aimed at increasing food security. The EU committed 1 billion euros of unspent funds to tackle the food crisis at the G8 summit in Japan last July.

The evolving global economic crisis - triggered by the collapse of financial institutions since September - appeared to push food security down the agenda again. But in 2009 a number of factors have helped to restore the focus on hunger, leading to this week's G8's initiative.

They include the new U.S. administration, which has prioritised hunger and food security; a high-level meeting in Madrid on food security organised by the Spanish government; effective behind-the-scenes work by the U.N. task force; and pressure from civil society advocacy groups.

G8 leaders reportedly plan to commit some $20 billion over three years to spur agricultural investment in poorer countries and combat hunger. But before giving them three cheers, two critical questions must be answered. Is this funding additional resources or a repackaging of existing commitments? And how can this initiative feed into sustained policy change aimed at increasing food security at household, national and global levels?

FRESH APPROACH

Policy change is needed in many countries that are currently food insecure. Investment in agricultural and rural development has been shamefully neglected over the past 30 years. Donors, including the World Bank, also bear responsibility for this. There must now be an acceptance that budget allocations to agriculture must increase and be sustained.

Much of the policy change required is straightforward: ensure smallholder farmers get inputs on time and have an outlet for marketing their produce; build rural infrastructure; and invest in rural institutions, including promoting farm organisations and women's groups.

Developed countries must also be willing to change their policies. The G8 initiative has been presented as signalling a shift from food aid to long-term investment in farming. This will pose an interesting challenge for the Obama administration in that it may need to confront the 'Iron Triangle' of vested interests involving the farm lobby, the shipping lobby and the aid agencies that distribute food aid.

These groups frustrated efforts by the outgoing Bush administration to allow some of the food aid budget to be used to buy food in the region close to where it's needed. The lobby has thus far won its battle that all U.S. food aid should be sourced in the United States.

The report produced by Ireland's Hunger Task Force, launched by Ban Ki-Moon in New York last September, identified some essential policy changes. Smallholder African farmers - particularly women who account for most of the continent's production - require more support through access to inputs and credit.

Nutrition interventions must be drastically scaled up. Severe acute malnutrition must be tackled using a community-based approach using ready-to-use therapeutic food. There must be a much greater focus on preventing chronically malnourished people slipping into acute malnutrition and on providing adequate nutrition to pregnant women and children under two years.

November's World Food Summit in Rome offers an opportunity to advocate for more effective international action on hunger. The history of such food summits is not good. In most cases, there has been a significant gap between the promises made and the subsequent actions. At the first such summit in 1974, for example, Henry Kissinger made the pledge that "within ten years, no child will go to bed hungry".

The G8 initiative at least provides a positive backdrop to November's meeting. It should provide an opportunity for many developing countries to commit to the type of policy change needed to increase their own food security. With 1 billion hungry people in the world, growing populations and the threat to agricultural production from climate change, making this urgent and critical commitment is both good politics and good economics.

For further information, visit Concern Worldwide's website.