Spatial Food And Nutrition Security Typologies For Agriculture And Food Value Chain Interventions In Eastern Drc

To guide the design of future agriculture and food value chain interventions, this paper combines two existing spatial food and nutrition security typologies and applies them to the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Apart from estimating absolute and relative inefficiencies along the food system from agricultural potential to nutrition, the integration of both typologies resulted in nine unique low efficiency profiles across the territories and major cities of the Greater Kivu region and Tanganyika. In addition to low utilization efficiency observed in some areas, most PICAGL intervention zones, especially Uvira and Kalemie, suffer from significant market constraints and therefore could substantially benefit from food value chain development. Although this paper relies on the most recent and spatially disaggregated data (which is a major improvement with respect to agricultural statistics of the country), the proposed typologies cannot uncover all bottlenecks hindering the development of agricultural value chains in the region.

In this paper we develop a policy-relevant typology using different intervention types and nutrition constraints. Our approach is based on an amendable demarcation of areas within a four-indicator diagram, each of which represents a core dimension of food and nutrition security (FNS), which makes our typology conceptually sound, operationally flexible, and less data intensive. The derived typology is applied to rural territories of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Despite a continuum of heterogenous development challenges across the country, the typology helped identify various clusters of territories which suffer mostly from production, access, and utilization constraints. Consequently, for the nine territories (out of 145) with the highest child stunting levels, we identified four broad intervention zones and studied the efficiency profile in more detail.

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.

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?

The Food and Nutrition Security Resilience Programme (FNS-REPRO) is the first programme of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Eastern Africa specifically designed to foster peace and food security at scale. FNS-REPRO employs a livelihood and resilience-based approach in some of the least stable regions, where interventions are normally exclusively of a humanitarian nature. Its design allows FAO and partners to set good examples of how to build food system resilience in protracted crises and strengthen cooperation across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus towards this end. This report provides the results of analyses conducted during FNS-REPRO’s inception phase in the Sudan, with the aim to inform its area-based interventions, thereby creating a common understanding of the context, and both the challenges and opportunities therein. The context analysis informs and co-creates design, approaches and operational responses, thereby also strengthening the FNS-REPRO learning agenda and evidence-based programming – focused on seed sector development. The publication provides a baseline for the four-year programme in the Sudan, together with the Resilience Baseline (RIMA) report.

This open access book discusses the current role of smallholders in connection with food security and poverty reduction in developing countries. It addresses the opportunities they enjoy, and the constraints they face, by analysing the availability, access to and utilization of production factors. Due to the relevance of smallholder farms, enhancing their production capacities and economic and social resilience could produce positive impacts on food security and nutrition at a number of levels. In addition to the role of small farmers as food suppliers, the book considers their role as consumers and their level of nutrition security. It investigates the link between agriculture and nutrition in order to better understand how agriculture affects human health and dietary patterns. Given the importance of smallholdings, strategies to increase their productivity are essential to improving food and nutrition security, as well as food diversity.

This report provides an overview of the impact evaluation findings of the FNS-REPRO project in South Sudan. [Author] The report draws on data collected from a panel and two rounds of surveys (baseline in 2020 and endline in 2023), collected from both intervention and non-intervention areas in the programme's target areas. [Author] This method of panel data collection provides the strongest evidence for attribution of a causal relationship between the implemented interventions and the effect on beneficiaries. [Author] Estimation of the household resilience capacity is done using the FAO RIMA-II tool. [Author] Among others, the analysis found that rescaled Resilience Capacity Index among the beneficiary households increased from 50 in baseline to 55 in endline. [Author] The overall RCI reported a significant positive impact, with a change of 3. [Author]95 points. [Author] The adaptive capacity and social safety net pillars reported the highest significant and positive impact, with a change of 4. [Author]7 and 4. [Author]9 points respectively. [Author] In addition, the project had a significant positive impact (11 percent) on the percentage of households reported to have used quality seeds and planting materials during the cropping season preceding the survey. [Author] Lastly, the project had a positive impact on overall income, income from crop production and income from livestock production. [Author] There was an increase of SSP (South Sudanese pound) 7 898 and SSP 3 030 in overall income and income from crop production respectively. [Author]