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 …
It is generally assumed that there are strong links between conflict, food security and peace. However, the precise underlying causes and channels that determine these links are often not well understood. More research and data are required to generate the evidence base that helps guide both national and international responses. …
The East Africa Community (EAC) region is particularly vulnerable to climate change. The region is already experiencing increased climate change impacts,including extreme weather conditions, persistent drought, floods, and landslides and rising sea level which threaten food security and efforts to eradicate poverty. Despite the huge potential to produce enough food, …
NAIROBI (Xinhua) -- The number of people facing crisis-level food insecurity in the Eastern Africa region has increased by 18 percent to 36.5 million in October from 30.9 million a year ago, UN humanitarian agency said Tuesday. The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Eastern Africa said …
While food commodity prices have been generally stable, the cost of importing food is forecast to rise six per cent in 2017 to $1.413 trillion, making it the second highest bill on record, according to the latest Food Outlook published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), expressing concern …
Harvest season is bringing little relief to millions of hungry people in South Sudan as conflict and hyperinflation have pushed malnutrition to critical levels that could put many lives at risk, food security experts warned on Monday. More than 1.1 million children under five children are forecast to be malnourished …
The bioenergy industry has successfully portrayed itself to the EU as a sustainable, renewable energy solution, leading to a vast expansion in the use of biofuels and other types of bioenergy. This in turn has resulted in the EU transport sector guzzling food crops from millions of hectares of land, …
Little is known about the role that foreign aid can play in dampening the effects of climate change. This paper investigates the role of aid in mitigating the adverse effects of climatic shocks on food security in developing countries. Because foreign aid is an important source of revenue for developing …
Stylized facts set agendas and shape debates. In rapidly changing and data scarce environments, they also risk being ill-informed, outdated and misleading. So, following higher food prices since the 2008 world food crisis, robust economic growth and rapid urbanization, and climatic change, is conventional wisdom about African agriculture and rural …
Most of the people in low and middle-income countries covered by social protection receive assistance in the form of in-kind food. The origin of such support is rooted in countries’ historical pursuit of three interconnected objectives, namely attaining self-sufficiency in food, managing domestic food prices, and providing income support to …
The purpose of this report is two-fold: to analyse how food systems influence people’s dietary patterns and nutritional outcomes; and to highlight effective policies and programmes that have the potential to shape food systems, contribute to improved nutrition and ensure that food is produced, distributed and consumed in a sustainable …
Changing climates are outpacing some components of our food systems. Risk assessments need to account for these rates of change. Assessing risk transmission mechanisms across sectors and international boundaries and coordinating policies across governments are key steps in addressing this challenge.
This book is devoted to the complex relationship between the global trading system and food security, focusing on two important elements: the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and how food price volatility can be managed, or not, through trade instruments. The first section of the book is based on the premise …
At a warehouse in the heart of Brazil's agriculture sector, farmer Rafael Bilibio watches truck after truck line up to unload corn onto the ground outside the huge storage bins. His own corn, ready for unloading from a 50-tonne truck that has just pulled in, is destined to join the …
Large agricultural commodity price swings observed in recent years have made the importance of accessible, timely, accurate and frequently updated price data more obvious. This study investigates the potential of innovative web and mobile phone technologies and alternative data collection methods such as crowdsourcing in order to collect food price …
Over the past two decades, many developing countries have achieved remarkable progress in improving dietary quality and reducing child-stunting rates. But understanding of the linkages between food expenditures, dietary quality, and nutritional outcomes is limited. Using data from the 1995–1996 and 2010–2011 rounds of the Nepal Living Standards Survey, study …
The current study is about estimating the extent to which domestic prices of major Indian agriculture commodities deviate from their corresponding free trade reference prices. The free trade reference prices are the estimated export-parity reference prices in cases of exported commodities and import parity reference prices in cases of imported …
Global food commodity prices are projected to remain low over the next decade compared to previous peaks, as demand growth in a number of emerging economies is expected to slow down and biofuel policies have a diminished impact on markets, according to the latest 10-year agricultural outlook published by the …
Girls as young as 12 are being forced into having sex for money to feed their families in drought-hit parts of Kenya. Families in rural areas of Turkana, one of the regions hardest hit by late rains, are sending their daughters to urban centres to make money. Many are forced …
The world’s food supplies are in danger as climate change and the increasing reliance on global trade threaten to create shortages and sudden, dramatic increases in prices, according to a new report by the leading think tank Chatham House. The report’s authors warned of a “growing risk … to human …
Durban – Almost 800 million people worldwide do not have enough to eat and 98% of these live in developing countries. And this, said The Hunger Project, was why World Hunger Day – its annual initiative observed on May 28 since 2011 – was so important. “Chronic hunger is a …
