Resilience For Food And Nutrition Security

Economic shocks including food price shocks, environmental shocks, social shocks, political shocks, health shocks, and many other types of shocks hit poor people and communities around the world, compromising their efforts to improve their well-being. As shocks evolve and become more frequent or intense, they further threaten people’s food and nutrition security and their livelihoods. How do we help people and communities to become more resilient, to not only bounce back from shocks but to also to get ahead of them and improve their well-being so that they are less vulnerable to the next shock? How do we get better at coping with—and even thriving—in the presence of shocks?

Human Resilience against Food Insecurity focuses on the human factors involved in building resilience against food and nutrition insecurity in perpetuity through better managing risks (such as ‘better-spacing’ of children), diversifying the asset portfolio, behavioral change, and communication strategies for to help achieve these goals. The better the coherence and convergence amongst these human factors that promote sustainable food and nutrition security, the lower the need to rectify their absence through post-facto, unsustainable ‘firemen’s work’ of humanitarian assistance and CMAM clinics. The book includes references to countries which are not in the lowest of the categories prescribed in the UNDP Human Development reports, also including minority groups in developed countries, such as the hunter-gatherer Inuit communities of Canada, to provide an inclusive view of the issues and concerns relevant to addressing food insecurity. Includes a global array of case studies Presents stories of success and failure in building resilience against food insecurity with the causative human aspect underlying each Addresses the social and cultural anthropological foundation of combatting food and nutrition insecurity

This synopsis presents highlights from the international conference “Building Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security,” organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and its 2020 Vision Initiative. This global policy consultation was designed to inform, influence, and catalyze action by policymakers, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, educators, researchers, and communities themselves to incorporate resilience into the post-2015 agenda and improve policies, investments, and institutions to strengthen resilience so that food and nutrition security can be achieved for all. Experts and practitioners from the resilience and vulnerability communities, as well as food and nutrition security, agriculture, humanitarian, and related development sectors came together to assess emerging shocks that threaten food and nutrition security, discuss approaches and tools for building resilience, identify knowledge and action gaps, and set priorities for action on this critical issue. For more information on the conference and its associated activities and products, including papers and briefs, lead-up and follow-up events, videos, posters, a collaborative bibliography, and much more, go to: www.2020resilience.ifpri.info | #2020resilience

The paper analyzes the determinants of long-term individual and community resilience for food and nutrition security in South Sudan using data from multiple sources including key informant interviews, household and community surveys, and georeferenced secondary data on climate, agricultural production, irrigation, and market access. Major agricultural development constraints as well as incidence of and responses to shocks and conflict are described. Climate-crop modeling and simulation methods are used to evaluate the constraints and to identify crop investment options. Then, a spatial typology of food and nutrition security is used to evaluate the constraints along the production-to-nutrition pathway to identify interventions that target different segments of the chain and options for improving agriculture and broader development outcomes. These are classified into production, access, and utilization efficiencies, and whether the underlying constraints are structural (i.e., level of efficiency remains the same over time) or stochastic (i.e., level of efficiency changes over time). The analysis is focused on about a dozen selected counties. The results show that development challenges are being compounded by climate change, with significant increases in the mean annual rainfall and daily maximum temperature for the warmest month. Between 1975 and 2016 for example, the mean annual rainfall in the selected counties increased by 40-111 mm/year, with a rise in the intensity of 0.2-1.3 mm per event. The daily maximum temperature for the warmest month increased by 2.0-3.2°C. If these trends (especially for temperature) continue to 2050, crop yields are projected to decline in the selected counties on average by 12-23% for sorghum, 9-18% for maize, 19-30% for groundnuts, and 16-24% for cassava. In general, there is an inverse-U-shaped the relationship between temperature and yields. While the peak of the inverse U varies by crop, time of the growing season, and other factors, crops in South Sudan are typically on the downward sloping side of the inverse U implying that increases in temperature will decrease yields (and at an increasing rate). Results of a spatial typology show that a majority (78%) of the selected counties are classified as having medium production efficiency and 22% as low production efficiency, none with high production efficiency. With respect to access to nutritious food, 55%, 29%, and 17% of the counties are classified as low, medium, and high access efficiency, respectively. And regarding the conversion of food access into nutritional status, 37%, 26%, and 37% are classified as low, medium, and high utilization efficiency, respectively. Whereas production efficiency mostly remains constant over time, (with only 24% of the counties recording substantial changes in efficiency level), access and utilization efficiency appear more volatile (with substantial changes observed in 52% of the counties). These results suggest that the access segment of the production-to-nutrition value chain is the most constraining, followed by the utilization segment. The differences in the results across counties reflect differences in development constraints across the country, which are also described. Implications of the results for building long-term individual and community resilience are discussed, in addition to areas for further research. Given the complex nature of crises facing South Sudan, our findings call for a comprehensive policy approach to address not only the urgent humanitarian crisis but also to help restore agricultural production systems as well as support communities to cope, recover, and build their vii resilience to shocks and crises. This is in line with the Partnership for Recovery and Resilience (PfRR) integrated programme framework for resilience which comprises four pillars: i) re-establish access to basic services, ii) rebuild trust in people and institutions, iii) restore productive capacities, and iv) nurture effective partnerships.

This report is the final outcome of various knowledge products and training material, usually labelled as “printed eAtlas”, which have been developed and shared with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) under the Voice for Change Partnership (V4CP) programme.

Food and nutrition insecurity is a consequence and a driver of civil conflict. War and civil unrest reduce household incomes and employment opportunities through economic recession; cause losses in people’s purchasing power from price inflation; and restrict food availability, access, and utilization through disruption of infrastructure. In turn, low per capita income and poverty, youth unemployment, and social and economic inequality—often combined with poor governance, population pressure, and rough terrain—are factors driving civil conflict. Recently, food and nutrition insecurity has been identified as another main driver of civil conflict globally and even more so in Arab countries. Specifically, rising international food prices were reported to have significantly increased the incidence of antigovernment demonstrations, riots, and civil conflict in low-income countries in the past.

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.