This paper assesses the role of the private sector by using the case study of Cambodia to learn specific lessons for increasing the resilience of food systems in the developing world. In order to develop a sustainable and lasting impact, it is imperative that both market actors and private actors be involved in addressing the new challenges facing vulnerable food systems.

In this paper we undertake an analytical review of the extant literature on the building food system resilience. While the concept of food system resilience has become a topical issue in global and national policy discussion, there is little research on how to develop operational procedures to design and implement interventions from the food system and resilience perspective. This review identifies five major entry points to strengthen food system resilience in the national context: policy, institutions, technology, capacity, and governance. Measurement issues and analytical approaches to studying food system resilience are reviewed. We conclude that while there is a large gap in the methodological approaches to study the food system resilience, beginning with the case studies of understanding specific elements of a food system and their role in enhancing resilience would be good starting point for addressing thematic issues, challenges and constraints facing resilience of the food systems.

The coronavirus pandemic has upended local, national, and global food systems, and put the Sustainable Development Goals further out of reach. But lessons from the world’s response to the pandemic can help address future shocks and contribute to food system change. In the 2021 Global Food Policy Report, IFPRI researchers and other food policy experts explore the impacts of the pandemic and government policy responses, particularly for the poor and disadvantaged, and consider what this means for transforming our food systems to be healthy, resilient, efficient, sustainable, and inclusive. Chapters in the report look at balancing health and economic policies, promoting healthy diets and nutrition, strengthening social protection policies and inclusion, integrating natural resource protection into food sector policies, and enhancing the contribution of the private sector. Regional sections look at the diverse experiences around the world, and a special section on finance looks at innovative ways of funding food system transformation. Critical questions addressed include: - Who felt the greatest impact from falling incomes and food system disruptions caused by the pandemic? - How can countries find an effective balance among health, economic, and social policies in the face of crisis? - How did lockdowns affect diet quality and quantity in rural and urban areas? - Do national social protection systems such as cash transfers have the capacity to protect poor and vulnerable groups in a global crisis? - Can better integration of agricultural and ecosystem polices help prevent the next pandemic? - How did companies accelerate ongoing trends in digitalization and integration to keep food supply chains moving? - What different challenges did the pandemic spark in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and how did these regions respond?

Food systems around the world face a triple challenge: providing food security and nutrition for a growing global population; supporting livelihoods for those working along the food supply chain; and contributing to environmental sustainability. Better policies hold tremendous promise for making progress in these domains.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerability of agrifood systems to shocks and stresses and led to increased global food insecurity and malnutrition. Action is needed to make agrifood systems more resilient, efficient, sustainable and inclusive. The State of Food and Agriculture 2021 presents country-level indicators of the resilience of agrifood systems. The indicators measure the robustness of primary production and food availability, as well as physical and economic access to food. They can thus help assess the capacity of national agrifood systems to absorb shocks and stresses, a key aspect of resilience. The report analyses the vulnerabilities of food supply chains and how rural households cope with risks and shocks. It discusses options to minimize trade-offs that building resilience may have with efficiency and inclusivity. The aim is to offer guidance on policies to enhance food supply chain resilience, support livelihoods in the agrifood system and, in the face of disruption, ensure sustainable access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to all.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted food security issues and nutrition gaps in Asia and the Pacific, where various risks and fragilities have continually affected the food and agriculture sector. There is a clear need to integrate sustainable management of natural resources, nutritional considerations, and the economic dimensions of food supply chains to enhance resilience and mitigate climate change. This publication explores how innovative financing and transformative knowledge solutions can help address the financing gaps and other challenges of food systems in the region.

Investing in Resilience: Ensuring a Disaster-Resistant Future focuses on the steps required to ensure that investment in disaster resilience happens and that it occurs as an integral, systematic part of development. At-risk communities in Asia and the Pacific can apply a wide range of policy, capacity, and investment instruments and mechanisms to ensure that disaster risk is properly assessed, disaster risk is reduced, and residual risk is well managed. Yet, real progress in strengthening resilience has been slow to date and natural hazards continue to cause significant loss of life, damage, and disruption in the region, undermining inclusive, sustainable development. Investing in Resilience offers an approach and ideas for reflection on how to achieve disaster resilience. It does not prescribe specific courses of action but rather establishes a vision of a resilient future. It stresses the interconnectedness and complementarity of possible actions to achieve disaster resilience across a wide range of development policies, plans, legislation, sectors, and themes. The vision shows how resilience can be accomplished through the coordinated action of governments and their development partners in the private sector, civil society, and the international community. The vision encourages “investors” to identify and prioritize bundles of actions that collectively can realize that vision of resilience, breaking away from the current tendency to pursue disparate and fragmented disaster risk management measures that frequently trip and fall at unforeseen hurdles. Investing in Resilience aims to move the disaster risk reduction debate beyond rhetoric and to help channel commitments into investment, incentives, funding, and practical action