The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
The 2019 edition of the Commodities and Development Report is titled "Commodity Dependence, Climate Change and the Paris Agreement". It seeks to further the understanding of the interactions between climate change and the commodity sectors. The report highlights the challenges that commodity dependent developing countries (CDDCs) face as they manage …
Favourable rains in Syria's agricultural areas, coupled with improved overall security, have boosted harvests compared to last year, but higher food prices are putting more strain on many Syrians, a new United Nations report has found. Wheat production is estimated at 2.2 million metric tonnes, compared to last year's 29-year …
Phosphorus (P) is an essential macronutrient in agriculture; however, lack of reporting makes its supply chain a black box. By using literature synthesis on the P challenge, we identify four areas where the reporting process is problematic: P reserves and resources; P losses along the supply chain; P externalities; and …
Despite the Zambian Government’s intention to diversify agriculture, the country is still heavily reliant on a narrow range of crops. Two-thirds of the total area under crop cultivation is devoted to maize. Consequently, the Zambian food system is not delivering enough affordable or nutritious foods for the majority of the …
The world is off-track to meet most of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets linked to hunger, food security and nutrition, according to a FAO report. The report paints a grim picture. Four years into the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, regression is the norm when it comes to ending …
The food price crisis of 2007–08 had devastating impacts for the world’s poorest people, especially for smallholder farmers and in particular for women, who face discrimination and a heavy burden of household responsibility. The global response to the crisis saw the launch of numerous new initiatives and instruments, but funding …
Endale Terefe remembers a time when he used to go to school so hungry he had trouble staying awake during lessons. The 14-year-old student in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, was living with his aunt after his parents died. "My aunt has no money to buy food," he said. "So I …
More than two million Kenyans are staring at food crisis in July as the effects of a drought that hit food production and led to increased prices continue to bite. This comes even as the country's grain reserves dwindle, with its less than a million tonnes stocks expected to run …
This paper looks at how changing food prices affect child undernutrition in Ethiopia. It derives height for age (stunting) and weight for height (wasting) as indicators of child undernutrition from the two most recent years of the Livings Standards Measurement Survey and utilizes market prices for key cereals, teff, wheat, …
Oxfam’s new report “Ten Years after the Global Food Crisis, Rural Women Still Bear the Brunt of Poverty and Hunger” analyses the reforms implemented since the food price crisis in 2007-2008, and highlights why they will not be enough to prevent another crisis or end hunger. The 2019 “Global Report …
Around 113 million people in 53 countries experienced acute food insecurity in 2018, compared to 124 million in 2017 finds this new report by the European Union, the FAO and the UN World Food Programme. A report presented jointly by the European Union, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the …
Through a review of the literature, this paper examines the links of food and agriculture with nutrition in South Asia, a region characterized by a high level of malnutrition. The review finds that the level and stability of food prices play a critical part in food consumption, with rising prices …
This report documents the activities carried out under the CIP-CCAFS study on identifying opportunities and challenges for creating a climate-smart food system in the Philippines and Vietnam. Specifically, four provinces (Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Leyte, and Samar) were studied in the Philippines while four provinces (Thai Binh, Bac Ninh, Tra Vinh, …
This paper examines patterns of market integration for food commodities in India. First, it tests the extent of domestic spatial market integration for retail and wholesale markets in 2006–14 and 2008–15, respectively, and looks at patterns of price transmission of shocks from international sources. Second, it measures vertical integration from …
In the event of large swings in world food prices, countries often intervene to dampen the impact of international food price spikes on domestic prices and to lessen the burden of adjustment on vulnerable population groups. While individual countries can succeed at insulating their domestic markets from short-term fluctuations in …
Global economic prospects have darkened. Financing conditions have tightened, industrial production has moderated, and trade tensions remain elevated. The recovery in emerging market and developing economies has stalled, and some countries have experienced significant financial stress. Downside risks have increased, including the possibility of disorderly financial market movements and escalating …
Consumer demand for food safety is likely to be an important driver of public policies and industry-led efforts to reduce information asymmetry on food attributes and improved food safety. This paper examines the attribute demand for chicken meat and tilapia among 803 shoppers in Accra, Ghana. Freshness is the main …
This Discussion paper explores the relationship between food loss and waste (FLW) and the right to adequate food. It focuses on the need to develop sustainable global consumption and production systems to contribute to the realization of the right to adequate food while it argues for a human rights-based approach …
With a large share of the population dependent on agriculture and high exposure to natural disasters and other food price shocks, the welfare impacts of food price inflation in Mozambique cannot be ignored. This paper performs incidence analysis exploiting the spatial location of households to match data on consumption with …
Persistent conflicts and climate-related shocks are currently driving high levels of severe food insecurity, particularly in Southern African and Near East countries, which continue to require humanitarian assistance, according to a new report published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Some 39 countries, 31 of which are in …
