Expert Consultation And Learning Exchange Event On Building Resilient Food Systems In The Horn Of Africa

Armed conflict combined with prolonged drought has put about 20 million people at risk of starvation and death in Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen, and northern Nigeria. The international development and aid communities are caught between the enormity of the humanitarian crisis, which demands an estimated US$4.4 billion to address, and the lack of resources forthcoming from donors. Food crises, famine-like conditions, and famines recur with regularity in many developing countries (see Box 1 for definitions of terms). Although the current famines can be largely attributed to conflicts, chronic food insecurity also threatens several other African countries. For example, 6.7 million people were affected by Malawi’s largest food crisis in decades in 2016–2017, and the country remains vulnerable to weather extremes that could create food emergencies (World Bank 2017). In Kenya, food security has deteriorated since the end of 2016 and half of its 47 counties face food shortages (Chatterjee and Mengistu 2017). How do countries prepare to prevent shocks—natural and man-made—from generating food crises? What does it take to break the cycle of chronic food insecurity and build resilient food systems? How have some countries managed to prevent drought from leading to famine? In this brief, we document lessons for building resilient food systems to prevent future famines.

his tool kit is the result of a tailored engagement approach and training process that was carried with the Resilient Food Systems (RFS) country projects based on the SHARED approach. The process was initiated with a series of consultation interviews and was followed by a set of virtual training events customized to the priorities of the country projects. Reflections by country projects provided feedback on the training as well as insights for future engagement and inclusion of the SHARED tools, methods and approaches.

Two years in, the long-term health and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to influence poverty, food systems, and food security. Drawing on CGIAR research on the COVID-19 pandemic thus far, this brief presents key lessons learned and policy recommendations to inform decision-making processes around managing risks, addressing structural vulnerabilities, and building resilient and sustainable food systems.

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 resilience of food systems and security to emerging challenges and threats, especially in the context of environmental and climate risks and global pandemics such as the Covid-19 crisis, is currently gaining growing importance in research, policy, and practice. Based on this, the core focus of this book, as a part of a series of CERES publications, consists of identifiying and exploring the best ways to overcome such challenges and shocks and to build resilience in the Global South. More precisely, the book analyzes current dynamics and trends related to the climate resilience of food security and assess the relevance of emerging approaches such as climate-smart agriculture, new roles of agriculture extension, smart farming, and climate adaptation of farming systems.The book includes both conceptual and empirical research reporting lessons learned from many geographical, environmental, social, and policy settings while focusing on Africa, Middle East, and Asia. It also provides research and policy-oriented inputs and recommendations to guide change processes at multiple scales.

This working document is a collaborative effort between the Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation (WCDI) of Wageningen University and Research (WUR) and FAO under the Food and Nutrition Security Resilience Programme (FNS-REPRO). The proposed methodology will be field tested in Sudan, South Sudan and Somaliland and validated by the parties mentioned above, based on which a final document will be produced. This guide aims to contribute to FNS-REPRO’s goal to build food system resilience (FSR) in protracted crises, in order to improve food and nutrition security (FNS). It shows how to do this with learning journeys – that is, working with stakeholders to engage and learn in different ways. Learning journeys provide opportunities for stakeholders to learn from each other in an interactive and participatory way. Building FSR requires tailor-made solutions for particular contexts, commodities, systems and actor groups. This means that local knowledge and expertise must be used. There also needs to be good collaboration between everyone involved (including government, UN, NGOs, private sector, local knowledge and research organizations, and civil society at large). The learning journey process is designed to facilitate this. This guide should be used flexibly. It should be adapted to specific needs and situations; specific topics and issues of interest should be central to the learning journey. It is important to know that learning journeys can have different natures, start in different ways, and be used by different actor groups. The FSR learning journeys are designed to create a common ground of concepts, challenges and opportunities to improve practice, and to inform the wider policy environment. They deliberately include a combination of open exploration of current practice and experience, content-specific workshops, and personal assignments. The different kinds of activities enable participants to explore and perhaps shift their dominant working habits. Learning journeys are strongly shaped by their participants. To be successful, they require active participation and open sharing. This guide assumes that a learning journey would be carried out over a flexible period of time, ranging from one week to one year. Depending on the participants, different learning journey paths can be chosen, allowing to tailor-make journeys that are suitable and cover the content. Each learning journey will need to be tailored to the current practices and priorities of the target country. This includes determining which events are suitable when, and selecting the focus content. Each learning journey has a specific topic. This topic needs the buy-in) of all the participants. If the learning journey does not feel relevant, motivation and commitment will decrease. Learning journeys can be designed around a particular learning question stemming from FNS-REPRO or beyond depending on needs and interest of participants. A typical learning journey consists of six parts: 1. a context and needs assessment. This is to understand FSR within the context. It includes identifying key stakeholders who could be involved, and assessing their information and learning needs. 2. a start-up workshop during which a wider group of actors involved in FSR comes together to consider how FSR in protracted crises could be improved through specific learning aspects. 3. a “deep dive” workshop into the content. This should be done through co-creating knowledge (knowledge workshops) and workshops on tools for knowledge (the systems we use to share knowledge). Concepts like food and nutrition security, food systems, resilience or even peace building should be part of this, depending on the learning journey’s exact focus. 4. Exchange and exposure visits with assignments as well as learning from a food system resilience case study – most likely to be a FNS-REPRO element – as long as this aligns with participant interests. 5. An action plan workshop in which progress and pitfalls are shared and steps towards further operationalisation of food system resilience in protracted crises are planned 6. Product development on the basis of all findings. These products can take a wide range of shapes, depending on the exact topic of the learning journey, and can be used by actors to improve practice and policy to build FSR to address food insecurity.

In the wake of the food and financial crises of 2007–2008 and 2011, building resilient food systems to achieve food security for all has become one of the top goals of the development agenda. Resilient food systems are those in which “people, communities, countries, and global institutions prevent, anticipate, prepare for, cope with, and recover from shocks and not only bounce back to where they were before the shocks occurred, but become even better off.” Resilient food systems can help countries transition from a relief stage to a development path. However, despite widespread agreement on the importance of food security, we lack a systematic understanding of how to build capacity for resilient food systems as well as which approaches to building capacity work and why. This brief introduces a model that seeks to delineate the key capacity components of a resilient food system. It also develops a typology based on a country’s capacity to create, manage, and utilize human resources for a resilient food system that suggests a systematic method for prioritizing investments in capacity building across countries. Taken together, such a framework facilitates an exploration of what we know and don’t know about developing capacity for resilient food systems.

The City Region Food Systems (CRFS) programme is a global initiative of FAO and RUAF that aims to support national and local governments and local food actors to build resilient city region food systems by strengthening rural–urban linkages and improving the resilience to climate and pandemic risks. This Handbook is designed for technical staff in local and national institutions, and practitioners in cities/city regions that are implementing the city region food system (CRFS) assessment and planning process. Its purpose is to help familiarizing with the CRFS approach and key terminology, and guide the implementation of an assessment and planning following different steps and modules. The Handbook is intended to be used in conjunction with the online Toolkit, which contains supplementary explanations, how-to tools, training materials, technical examples, and workshop resources related to activities within each project module. The Toolkit can be accessed on the CRFS programme website (https://www.fao.org/in-action/food-for-cities-programme/toolkit/introduction/en/).

The aim of this report is to define the strategy for the Science and Policy Interface under Component 1 of the Resilient Food Systems Programme (RFS) Hub. Under this component, FAO and UN-Environment Programme, in partnership with RFS country projects and a range of other actors and platforms and institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, aim to address institutional and policy barriers to inclusion of ecosystem services-aware approaches into policies and investments for improved and sustainable smallholder agriculture and natural resources. The focus of this component is the facilitation of dialogue, models, policies, and institutions that bridge the agricultural and environmental agendas and constituencies, at various scales.