IXL Social Enterprise Case Studies Food Security January 2013 | Page 3

Table of Contents / Figures

Contents
Of almost a billion people who need food security, 200 million live in urban slums 4
Food security should be a basic right for all human beings
4
Food security increases productivity and provides opportunity to do other activities
4
Almost 200 million people in urban slums lack food security, and there may be many
more in the future
4
Poor slum dwellers struggle to get safe, sufficient, affordable and easily accessible food
People need knowledge to make the right food choices
People need food that is consumable
People need calories and nutrients to be healthy
People need food that is accessible

6
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9

Trends suggest a worsening scenario in the future 9
Climate change and volatility will create uncertainty in food production
9
Growing population means an ever increasing demand for more food production
10
Increasing land degradation and demand for cash crops will reduce arable land for food
production
11
Large fluctuations in food prices amplify problems for poor people living in poor regions
11
Industrial farming is reaching its limit
11
Food security in slums is not a priority for governments, the private sector and NGOs
Governments see slums as illegal habitats
The private sector finds slums unattractive for business
NGOs have not made enough progress upgrading slums

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Social enterprises may be the best option to address this issue 12
However, building successful social enterprises in slums will be difficult
Consumers who have limited and fluctuating incomes are difficult to serve
Partners across the food value chain are difficult to work with dependably
Social enterprise operations are difficult to manage
Limited infrastructure is difficult to manage

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Can we build sustainable, scalable and fast-growing social enterprises to increase food
security in slums? 16
What’s next? 17
Addendum 18
Considerations for developing a complete solution
18
Authors
24
Research Team
24
Acknowledgements 24
Selected Reference Sites and Sources 25

Figures
Figure 1. Over 870 MM people are hungry with most in Asia, Africa and Latin America 4
Figure 2. The number of hungry people living in slums is significant 4
Figure 3. In the future, the majority of the world’s population will be urban 5
Figure 4. The largest cities by population are moving to the developing world 5
Figure 5. The Cycle of P