Armed conflict combined with prolonged drought has put about 20 million people at risk of starvation and death in Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen, and northern Nigeria. The international development and aid communities are caught between the enormity of the humanitarian crisis, which demands an estimated US$4.4 billion to address, and the lack of resources forthcoming from donors. Food crises, famine-like conditions, and famines recur with regularity in many developing countries (see Box 1 for definitions of terms). Although the current famines can be largely attributed to conflicts, chronic food insecurity also threatens several other African countries. For example, 6.7 million people were affected by Malawi’s largest food crisis in decades in 2016–2017, and the country remains vulnerable to weather extremes that could create food emergencies (World Bank 2017). In Kenya, food security has deteriorated since the end of 2016 and half of its 47 counties face food shortages (Chatterjee and Mengistu 2017). How do countries prepare to prevent shocks—natural and man-made—from generating food crises? What does it take to break the cycle of chronic food insecurity and build resilient food systems? How have some countries managed to prevent drought from leading to famine? In this brief, we document lessons for building resilient food systems to prevent future famines.

Two years in, the long-term health and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to influence poverty, food systems, and food security. Drawing on CGIAR research on the COVID-19 pandemic thus far, this brief presents key lessons learned and policy recommendations to inform decision-making processes around managing risks, addressing structural vulnerabilities, and building resilient and sustainable food systems.

The resilience of food systems and security to emerging challenges and threats, especially in the context of environmental and climate risks and global pandemics such as the Covid-19 crisis, is currently gaining growing importance in research, policy, and practice. Based on this, the core focus of this book, as a part of a series of CERES publications, consists of identifiying and exploring the best ways to overcome such challenges and shocks and to build resilience in the Global South. More precisely, the book analyzes current dynamics and trends related to the climate resilience of food security and assess the relevance of emerging approaches such as climate-smart agriculture, new roles of agriculture extension, smart farming, and climate adaptation of farming systems.The book includes both conceptual and empirical research reporting lessons learned from many geographical, environmental, social, and policy settings while focusing on Africa, Middle East, and Asia. It also provides research and policy-oriented inputs and recommendations to guide change processes at multiple scales.

As part of the work implemented by CGIAR on COVID-19, the COVID-19 Research Hub Working Group 4 “Address food systems’ fragility and build back better” was tasked with implementing a global assessment of the impacts of COVID-19 on food systems and their actors, focusing specifically on the consequences that the pandemic had brought on the food security and nutrition of those who have been affected by the crisis. This includes formal and informal actors of the food supply chains (from producers to street vendors) as well as consumers, in both rural and urban environments. Building on this assessment, the task was then to draw on key principles of resilience in the context of humanitarian and food security crisis, to identify preliminary elements of a food system resilience research agenda.

This open access book compiles a series of chapters written by internationally recognized experts known for their in-depth but critical views on questions of resilience and food security. The book assesses rigorously and critically the contribution of the concept of resilience in advancing our understanding and ability to design and implement development interventions in relation to food security and humanitarian crises. For this, the book departs from the narrow beaten tracks of agriculture and trade, which have influenced the mainstream debate on food security for nearly 60 years, and adopts instead a wider, more holistic perspective, framed around food systems. The foundation for this new approach is the recognition that in the current post-globalization era, the food and nutritional security of the world’s population no longer depends just on the performance of agriculture and policies on trade, but rather on the capacity of the entire (food) system to produce, process, transport and distribute safe, affordable and nutritious food for all, in ways that remain environmentally sustainable. In that context, adopting a food system perspective provides a more appropriate frame as it incites to broaden the conventional thinking and to acknowledge the systemic nature of the different processes and actors involved. This book is written for a large audience, from academics to policymakers, students to practitioners. This is an open access book.

Two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the health, economic, and social disruptions caused by this global crisis continue to evolve. The impacts of the pandemic are likely to endure for years to come, with poor, marginalized, and vulnerable groups the most affected. In COVID-19 & Global Food Security: Two Years Later, the editors bring together contributions from new IFPRI research, blogs, and the CGIAR COVID-19 Hub to examine the pandemic’s effects on poverty, food security, nutrition, and health around the world. This volume presents key lessons learned on food security and food system resilience in 2020 and 2021 and assesses the effectiveness of policy responses to the crisis. Looking forward, the authors consider how the pandemic experience can inform both recovery and longer-term efforts to build more resilient food systems.