Social protection measures - actions by states to protect the most vulnerable people from hunger and poverty - are failing to ensure that people can get food.

• In 2006, WFP (World Population Foundation) emergency operations provided food aid for 63.4 million people caught up in an ever-widening net of humanitarian disasters.
• The rising tide of civil conflict, war and natural disasters in the world's poorest nations has led to a near explosion in food emergencies - up from an average of 15 per year in the 1980s to more than 30 per year since 2000
• The proportion of food emergencies attributable to man-made causes, such as conflict or economic failures, has doubled to 35 percent since 1992. Most are concentrated in Africa.
• Over a billion people now suffer chronic daily malnutrition making it even more important that social protection measures be put in place.

GOVERNMENTS MUST PROTECT - What must happen

1. Urgent safety-net measures must ensure that stores of food exist in countries to respond to a crisis.
2. All countries must invest in welfare systems so that no one goes hungry – for example by making sure that every child has a free school meal.
3. In the longer term countries must invest in transforming the lives of vulnerable people to ensure self-sufficiency.
4. National laws must enshrine everybody’s right to food.

How we are campaigning on it