Achieving ‘Zero Hunger’ through public agricultural expenditure: Evidence from 62 low and lower-middle income countries from 1990–2014

Goal Two of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals aims to achieve ‘zero hunger’ by increasing investment in agriculture. This study examines the impact of public agricultural expenditure (PAE), on global food insecurity using an unbalanced panel of 62 low and lower-middle income countries from 1990−2014. Our baseline model is an OLS-fixed effects panel estimation followed by a system GMM estimation. The results show that per capita PAE significantly reduced the prevalence of undernourishment in low and lower-middle income countries. However, evidence of the impact of per capita PAE on the severity of food insecurity (measured through the depth of the food deficit) is weak. The findings suggest that, while PAE is a potent tool for eradicating food insecurity, by itself it is unlikely to achieve the ‘zero hunger’ goal. Copyright © 2022 Sustainability and Development Initiative.