Governance of Food Security

Committee on Food Security

The 2007/08 food crisis inspired global governance reforms. These aimed to achieve greater consistency between national food action plans and to eliminate duplication between aid agencies. For this purpose the Committee on Food Security (CFS) was modernised to ensure that the views of governments and civil society would combine with those of the three major UN food agencies – the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The CFS is supported by a High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE), a scientific body providing independent analysis for policy makers. Over the last decade this combination has published a sequence of guidelines and non-binding policy frameworks on controversial issues relating to food security. These include the volatility of commodity prices, the use of land for biofuels rather than food, and institutional investment in agriculture, otherwise described as land grabbing. Whilst these topics have subsided in the headlines, they remain as very real risk factors for the governance of global food security.

More recently, in preparation for the UN Food Systems Summit, convened by the UN Secretary-General in July 2021, the CFS has produced the Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition. These Guidelines aim to assist governments with strategies to eradicate hunger and malnutrition.

A dedicated summit of this importance will expose tensions between policy makers, implementing organisations, and major donors from public and private sectors. The role of the CFS itself is under the microscope.

Global governance of food security – a former Chair of the CFS reflects on its work, from Green European Foundation

UN Food Agencies

Monitoring food security throughout the world is the core mandate of the FAO. It coordinates a flagship annual publication currently titled The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. For more logistical purposes, the FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System is a vital alert of serious hunger situations

This System is the primary source informing the WFP for its most important role, the distribution of food aid. In 2019 the agency supported 97 million people in 88 countries, requiring contributions of $8 billion. The World Food Programme was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020.

The US provides approximately 50% of all food aid but insists that most of its aid should be disbursed as surplus grain from US national stocks – and that the chain of delivery must be tied to US shippers and contractors. These conditions add time and expense to the delivery of food aid.

Most humanitarian experts advise that food should be purchased from surplus areas within the beneficiary country, not just on grounds of cost and delivery time but also to inject activity into the domestic economy.

Poorest countries threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic – a senior manager from the World Health Programme explains why the health crisis may become a food crisis
from South China Morning Post

World Trade Organization

In a less unequal world, poorer countries should be working more closely with the World Trade Organization (WTO) than the UN food agencies. A rules-based international trade regime for agriculture should deliver fair access to global food markets for all countries but history has erected barriers to this ideal.

Determined to support the dominant profile of small family farms in the aftermath of the Second World War, the European Common Agricultural Policy and the US Farm Bill both provided generous subsidies and protective tariffs. These policies proved successful, generating colossal internal food surpluses.

Ambitions of the poorer countries of the modern world to copy this approach remain unfulfilled. In controlling the WTO’s supposedly open market rules, the richer countries refused to unravel their own protectionist model.

This hypocrisy remains a fundamental barrier to effective food security strategies in developing countries. Domestic markets continue to be undercut by cheap food imports dumped by rich countries. As a result, almost all the 48 Least Developed Countries are dependent on food imports, vulnerable to unpredictable world prices. Sub-Saharan Africa paid $43 billion for its food imports in 2019, a sum sufficient to deliver universal coverage of electricity in that region.

World Bank and OECD estimates suggest that leading economies provide their agriculture producers over $600 billion of annual support. A further $150 billion each year is believed to be subsidising the unsustainable activities of fishing fleets of wealthy countries, denying vital protein resource for local coastal communities. Although these subsidies are expected to fall, the total is likely to remain astronomic compared with the UN’s estimate of the annual cost of eradicating hunger by 2030.

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more Food Security briefings (updated March 2021)
Food Security Definition and Global Divide
Right to Food
Sustainable Development Goal for Food
Causes of Food Insecurity
Solutions to Food Insecurity
Source material and useful links

Recent news and opinion about Food Security

Rice export bans are a food crisis risk for Asia

19/9/2023: Global rice prices have risen to a 12-year high since India, the world’s largest rice exporter, embarked on a policy of reducing exports. Across Asia, nations are attempting to control the cereal grain’s prices, sowing the seeds of a potential food crisis

Source: CNA

A plea for a UN summit on the global food crisis

25/8/2023: Launched by Hungry for Action, a coalition of civil society organizations is calling for an emergency meeting of world leaders to address the global food crisis during the UN General Assembly next month. The campaign argues that a combination of conflict, climate change, rising food prices and punishing debt burdens has led to 735 million people going hungry, 122 million more than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Inter Press Service

Does India’s rice market disruption threaten food security?

20/8/2023: The general election in India scheduled for the spring of 2024 has politicians’ eyes focused on stabilising staple food prices, a probable explanation of the rice export ban in July. It is uncertain if India, the current G20 chair, can provide leadership on calming an increasingly turbulent world food economy.

Source: East Asia Forum

We need a new recipe to combat hunger

7/8/2023: The UN has reported that 122 million more people are going hungry than in 2019, erasing years of progress. It’s time to admit that the industrial food system is starving people. Half the calories consumed around the world come from just three staple crops, shipped around the world by a handful of powerful trading firms. This is profitable, but it is not robust.

Source: Inter Press Service

Rice market in turmoil as India curtails exports

6/8/2023: Rice prices have soared to the highest in a decade as India limits exports and erratic weather wreaks havoc on Asian rice fields. This is likely to worsen food insecurity in many countries that rely on rice as a staple. Last year, India exported about 22 million tons of rice to 140 countries, comprising roughly 40% of the global cereal trade.

Source: DW

UN Security Council: Food insecurity tops agenda

3/8/2023: A draft communique presented by the US Secretary of State calls on the UN Security Council to "take action to end the use of food as a weapon of war." The collapse of the Black Sea grain deal poses a serious threat to the food security of many lower-income countries already grappling with hunger and economic crises.

Source: DW

How to mend the world’s broken food systems

24/7/2023: The 2021 UN Food Systems Summit launched a global drive to transform the way humanity grows, processes and transports food. Prior to the second summit, a senior official from the UN Environment Programme discusses mounting concerns about the planet’s long-term ability to feed a fast-growing human population.

Source: UN Environment Programme

How will the end of the Ukraine grain deal hurt Africa?

19/7/2023: Russia has quit a deal that allows the safe passage of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea. Could this move exacerbate the hunger crisis in parts of Africa, a major wheat importer?

Source: DW

SDG hunger goal slumps further behind 2030 target

12/7/2023: The UN flagship global food security report has found that in 2022 between 691 million and 783 million people were hungry, 122 million more than in 2019 before the pandemic. The world is being pushed further away from meeting the UN's near hopeless goal to eliminate hunger by 2030.

Source: Devex

One year of the Black Sea Initiative: key facts

10/7/2023: For almost a year, the UN-brokered Black Sea Initiative agreed by Russia, Türkiye, and Ukraine has allowed millions of tonnes of grain to leave Ukraine’s ports. The Initiative has helped reverse spiking global food prices, which reached record highs shortly before the agreement was signed.

Source: UN News

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