Johan Swinnen
GLOBAL FOOD POLICY REPORT
IFPRI’s 2023 Global Food Policy Report: Rethinking Food Crisis Responses – Considerations for Africa
IFPRI Africa Regional Office
JUN 22, 2023 - 9:00 TO 10:30AM EDT
3. From June 2013 …
Towards the end
of hunger … ?
13
7.8
796
572
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
Millions
Percentage
Prevalence of undernourishment (percent)
Number of people undernourished (million)
4. From June 2013 …
Towards the end
of hunger … ?
13
7.8
8
9.8
796
572 618
768
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
Millions
Percentage
Prevalence of undernourishment (percent)
Number of people undernourished (million)
5. Vulnerability of food systems :
Compounding crises, shocks, and structural setbacks
Source: FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the
World 2022, (Rome: FAO, 2022).
13
7.8
8
9.8
796
572 618
768
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
Millions
Percentage
Prevalence and number of
undernourished worldwide, 2000–2021
Prevalence of undernourishment (percent)
Number of people undernourished (million)
Price volatility 2000-2022
Source: Heady et al 2021
6. More frequent, complex, and
protracted crises likely
Climate change a looming danger
Up to 21% reduction in agricultural productivity
growth since 1961
Contributor of food crises for >20 million people
in 2021
Compounding crises: conflict, climate
change, and economic shocks
For example: Syria, Afghanistan, and South
Sudan
Climate, Conflict, Covid, and Food Security
0
50
100
150
200
250
1900
1906
1913
1918
1923
1928
1933
1938
1943
1948
1953
1958
1963
1968
1973
1978
1983
1988
1993
1998
2003
2008
2013
2018
Trends in extreme weather events,
droughts, and floods, 1900–2022
Extreme weather events Drought Flood
Source: https://emdat.be/
7. Forced migrants
~103 million people forcibly displaced in 2022
80% experienced acute food insecurity
Low- and middle-income countries
especially vulnerable
limited resources for crisis response
Women
Impacts to women’s dietary diversity, decision-
making power, assets, health, and physical safety
Setback of gender equality goals by 30 years
Food crises impact some more heavily than others
103
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Millions
Forcibly Displaced People
Source: UNHCR (2023).
Note: Includes internally displaced people and refugees.
8. 2023 GFPR: A timely contribution
Calls for more effective crisis responses
not new, but increasingly urgent
Cutting-edge analysis from IFPRI and
partners about recent crises and their
impacts on food security, nutrition, poverty,
and livelihoods
Concrete strategies for crisis response
Regionally differentiated approaches
9. Key Action Areas
1.The Road to Resilience: Rethinking Responses to Food Crises
2. Food Crisis Risk Monitoring: Early Warning for Early Action
3. Crisis Resilience: Humanitarian Response and Anticipatory
Action
4. Agrifood Value Chains: Building Resilient Food Systems
5. Social Protection: Adaptive Safety Nets for Crisis Recovery
6. Gender: Promoting Equality in Fragile and Conflict-Affected
Settings
7. Forced Migration: Fragility, Resilience, and Policy Responses
(+ Six Regional Chapters)
10. Early-warning, early-action (EWEA) systems
Systems must better address complexity of crises
Filling M&E gaps is critical
Integrating existing systems can ensure that policymakers
receive clear, timely, and actionable warning signals
Anticipatory action frameworks
Require monitoring data that illuminate risks, exposure, and
vulnerability
Can mitigate crises at lower cost and support longer-term
development efforts
Robust governance and improved targeting raise efficacy
Recommendations (1)
11. Resilient agrifood value chains
Businesses should invest in improved and innovative tools
like climate-smart agriculture and new forms of insurance
Governments should create a business environment that
fosters value chain innovations
Data can be used to target assistance to crucial value
chain nodes
Responsive social protection systems
Governments need highly adaptive, flexible, and inclusive
social protection systems
Integrate “shock responsive” social protection with EWEA
and humanitarian aid for greater coherence
Explore new ways to cover costs (e.g., climate or green
financing) and reduce costs (e.g., using mobile payments)
Recommendations (2)
12. Empowering women amid crisis
Improve the quality of gender-disaggregated data collected
before and during crises
Creating explicit gender targets in crisis response and track
them
Increase women’s political participation and amplify their
voice and agency in their communities
Responding to forced migration
Governments should invest in infrastructure and design
policies that expand the benefits of migration
Innovative data collection can be used to better understand
and address the root causes of forced migration
Recommendations (3)
13. Chapter 1: Johan Swinnen and Katrina
Kosec
Chapter 2: Rob Vos, Arif Husain,
Friederike Greb, Peter Läderach, and
Brendan Rice
Chapter 3: Sikandra Kurdi and Sandra
Ruckstuhl
Chapter 4: Bart Minten, Ben Belton, and
Thomas Reardon
Chapter 5: Kalle Hirvonen
Chapter 6: Hazel Malapit and Lynn
Brown
Chapter 7: Manuel Hernandez, Olivier
Ecker, Peter Läderach, and Jean-
François Maystadt
Thanks to our authors
Africa: Samuel Benin, Wim Marivoet,
Harriet Mawia, and John Ulimwengu
Middle East and North Africa: Kibrom
Abay, Xinshen Diao, David Laborde, and
Mariam Raouf
Central Asia: Kamiljon Akramov
South Asia: Anjani Kumar and Shahidur
Rashid
East and Southeast Asia: Kevin Chen,
Yunyi Zhou, and Rui Mao
Latin America and the Caribbean:
Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla, and Valeria Piñeiro
16. Calls for more effective crisis responses not new,
but increasingly urgent
Evidence-based tools, policy models, and
approaches at hand
Must align humanitarian aid with medium- and
long-term development strategies and with
resilience building, reflecting a humanitarian –
development – peace (HDP) nexus approach
Cornerstones of effective responses:
Effective governance and coordination
Sufficient and flexible funding
Charting a new path for
addressing crises
17. Effective governance is critical for sustainable and
responsive action
Central to effective deployment and sustaining of anticipatory action,
humanitarian assistance, social protection, and other programs
Can promote market stability and innovation in the private sector
Contributes to trust and social cohesion, thwarting future conflicts
Coordination is critical
International – national – local
Public – private – civil society
Global south – global north
Policy forums can help build consensus
Action must be grounded in evidence
Cornerstone #1: Effective governance and
coordination
18. Need for crisis response funding has increased
Investment in resilience and anticipatory action can
reduce future costs of humanitarian response
Funding options
Repurposing US$800 billion in government agricultural supports
Shifting public and private investment toward crisis prevention and
resilience through changing allocations and incentives
De-risk investment in resilience with blended finance
Cornerstone #2: Sufficient and flexible funding
US$ 24 billion
US$ 52
Billion
Funding received in
2022
Funding requested in
2023
Rapid increase in humanitarian
funding needs
Source: Humanitarian Action, “At a Glance” (2022).
Note: Amounts of funding received and requested by UN Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Editor's Notes
Undernourishment increased by 196 million people since 2015
Compounding crises perpetuate food and nutrition security challenges while making recovery from shocks more difficult
Massive flooding in Pakistan displaced 33 million people
Drought in the Horn of Africa killed 7 million livestock
Climate change one of biggest challenges for food systems
driving displacement in the global south
destruction of homes and infrastructure, and loss of property and income
Increase in climate-related food-borne, water-borne, and vector-borne diseases
Adverse effects on gender and social equity.
Most LMICs are in Southern hemisphere= disproportionately affected by climate shocks and subsequently, conflict. They remain vulnerable, especially post-COVID when they are cash-strapped.
Women suffer greater harm from shocks:
Systemic gender inequality in norms, institutions, and access to resources hinders women’s resilience
Recent events set back gender equality goals by more than 30 years, as measured by changes in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index between 2020 and 2022.
Funding strategies offered by GFPR can also generate wins for climate adaptation and mitigation
EWAEs:
Systems should consider complex crises, including climate-related events and conflict situations
Filling gaps in monitoring and analysis can foster greater understanding of compounding crises
Integrating existing systems can ensure that policymakers receive clear, timely, and actionable warning signals
Example of integrating existing systems: Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) classifications at the country level are based on a convergence of evidence, which works from the premise that various unrelated sources and types of data can “converge” toward strong conclusions
Anticipatory action means using early warning or forecasting tools combined with predetermined decision-making protocols to inform early action for timely emergency response at the local, national, and/or international levels (see Chapter 2). Triggers or thresholds are predefined within data and risk monitoring systems.
Businesses should invest in improved and innovative tools like climate-smart agriculture and new forms of insurance
Governments should create a business environment that fosters value chain innovations
Careful monitoring before and during crises can be used to target assistance to crucial value chain nodes
Governments need highly adaptive, flexible, and inclusive social protection systems that budget for potential crises
Integrate “shock responsive” social protection with EWEA and humanitarian aid for greater coherence
Explore new ways to cover costs (e.g., climate or green financing) and reduce costs (e.g., using mobile payments)
Example of resilient agrifood value chains from pandemic response: E-commerce expanded to serve small and medium enterprises (SMEs), including wet-market stall owners; for example, Getir started Getirçarşı, a division delivering only for SME retailers.
Improve the quality of gender-disaggregated data collected before and during crises
Creating explicit gender targets and tracking progress in crisis response is central to promoting gender equality
Increase women’s political participation and amplify their voice and agency in their communities
Governments should invest in infrastructure and design policies that expand the benefits of migration
Innovative data collection can be used to better understand and address the root causes of forced migration
Funding strategies offered by GFPR can also generate wins for climate adaptation and mitigation
Calls for more effective crisis responses are not new, but take on greater urgency as crises become more frequent, complex, and protracted
We already have wealth of evidence that can help better predict and prepare for crises, address crises, and build resilient food systems
Cornerstones of more effective response include effective governance and coordination, and sufficient and flexible funding
HDP Nexus Approach:
Humanitarian relief, development programs, and peacebuilding are not serial processes: they are all needed at the same time
Focuses on the work needed to coherently address people’s vulnerability before, during and after crises
It challenges the status quo of the aid system, which is overstretched and operates with little coordination between project-based development and humanitarian interventions
UN request for humanitarian assistance up 461% since 2012
US$711 billion invested in social protection in 2022