How to Feed an Increasingly Hungry World

With help from the Corporation, the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy’s latest report identifies nine key areas where policymaking can help end global food insecurity

By Carnegie Corporation of New York October 4, 2021

Scholarship & Policy

Why is food insecurity getting worse ⁠— and what can policymakers do about it? A recent report, Peace Through Food: Ending the Hunger-Instability Nexus, by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD) at Georgetown University tackles this question and proposes nine key areas for improvement. The Corporation-funded report considers the role of global hunger in political instability and conflict and what policymakers and governments can do to help the approximately one billion people struggling with food security or malnourishment in the world today.

The report is part of the ISD’s New Global Commons working group series to expand its case studies to engage with real-world diplomatic issues, which the Corporation’s “Bridging the Gap” program has supported since October 2016. The series brings together senior practitioners, policymakers, and leading academics to discuss and find workable policy solutions and guiding principles to some of the world’s most pressing issues.

For this latest report, ISD convened a series of working group meetings in spring 2021 where participants mapped out the current state of global food systems, discussed the relationship between hunger and conflict, and sought ways to establish food security as a means to promote stability and end conflict. According to the report, adverse climate events, poor resource management, disease outbreaks, breakdowns in distribution, and profit-driven research and development, among other factors, have led to structural imbalances and inequities in the food system, which limit consistent access to nutrition for an increasing number of people.

In an articl e for the Corporation-supported Monkey Cage forum published by the Washington Post, Kelly McFarland, ISD’s director of programs and research, and Kit Evans, an ISD research assistant, write that the working groups found that “global food production and distribution systems have not kept pace with significant threats presented by disease outbreaks, conflict, and climate change” and that the “political and economic disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic — including fractured governments and the collapse of supply chains, have added nearly 120 million people to the ranks of the world’s food insecure and malnourished.” Meanwhile, the world wastes a third of the food produced.

A lack of access to food and food insecurity are drivers of political instability and conflict, and as climate change worsens and the pandemic continues to create restrictions in countries around the world for the foreseeable future, the growing food crisis becomes more critical. As McFarland and Evans note, “This awareness adds a new urgency to the need for greater global and local coordination — at all levels — on efforts to tackle the food crisis — efforts that include international summits like the U.N. Food Systems Summit,” which was held in September.

According to the report, the United Nations’ goal to end global hunger by 2030 will continue to fall further out of reach in coming years unless the international community undertakes a wholesale rethink of food security, leading to major reform of the food system as we know it. The report proposes nine key areas for improvement:

Food security must be reenvisioned as a basic human right. Food security – in terms of vocabulary and framework – needs to be reenvisioned through the lens of social protection, social safety nets, and as a global commons right. Analysts and policymakers also need to understand food security as a first-order tool to build stability and prevent conflict and to articulate policies with that in mind.

Knowledge gaps need to be filled. From land degradation to water levels and distribution network vulnerabilities, researchers and policymakers should focus on analysis of real-time information and gathering real-time data, which can be difficult in certain circumstances. Increased knowledge will allow diplomats and other policymakers to attempt directed interventions.

Nutritional need must drive food systems. Three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. A lack of healthy diets not only leads to physical and cognitive stunting, but it can lead to obesity and diabetes in both rich and poor countries alike. According to the U.N., the number of obese and overweight people globally now exceeds three billion. An increase in the planting of, and marketing of, high nutritional crops would narrow the gap between today’s current food supply system and nutrition.

The public and private sector need to align on research and development. Private capital now drives the majority of research and development. This is a significant break from past trends of public/private collaboration that ensured these funding streams were part of a broader strategy. Today, international organizations and governments lack a strong role in this field. They should increase partnerships between the global agricultural sector, agri-business, governments, the international community, and other parts of the private sector.

The food system must be reformed toward more resiliency. When a government doubts its ability to acquire food in tough times, it is more apt to make risky international land purchases and/or undertake protectionist food polices at the first sign of distress. Food insecurity arises due to single points of failure – often foreseeable – which require humanitarian interventions. The need to build resilience into all points of the food system – from plant to pantry – would allow the system to withstand certain levels of disruption and help build public trust.

Coordination must improve. The international community needs to focus on a better, and greener, post-COVID recovery when it comes to issues of food security. It is critical to focus on integration, layering, and sequencing when approaching reform and resilience. More careful and holistic investments in agriculture that consider how they might drive/quell polarization, instability, and conflict, are necessary. Coordination must come at all levels to be successful: global, regional, country, and program.

Flexibility and ground-up approaches should be front and center. Prevailing views within the international community do not always translate well to local conditions, and some of these can even have the ill-effect of driving conflict. It is important to promote local leadership and local ownership of programs but that also includes more government participatory action in aid. A key starting point includes more inclusiveness and dialogue with all potentially affected peoples. Tackling food insecurity at a community level may be the best means we have in the short run to mitigate conflict driven by food scarcity or climate issues. Local solutions are the only hope in countries where governance is unreliable or uneven.

Government procurement is a useful policy tool. Research has shown that sustainable public procurement of farm produce can create a viable market for farmers. Government-driven programs can help farmers obtain a steady buyer and a steady income, which enables them to grow more crop types that make sense at the local level rather than globally marketable commodities. These programs also help to localize the food system and cut out the potential for distribution network disruptions.

The international community needs to remain vigilant and do more to monitor foreign land acquisition and respond to protectionism. More multilateral efforts are needed, such as the G-20’s Committee on World Food Security, which has developed guidelines on food investments. Better regulation of land acquisition is also necessary. A key emphasis can and should be on the protection of local land rights and the empowerment of the poor and women. Foreign investments must disincentivize securitized, even protectionist, approaches to food security.

To learn more, read the full report Peace Through Food: Ending the Hunger-Instability Nexus.

TOP: Loveness Haneumba and her children walk back home in January 2020 after collecting food from a distribution organized by the United Nations World Food Program and World Vision in Zambia where 2.3 million people were severely food insecure at the time. (Credit: Guillem Sartorio/AFP via Getty Images)