This section presents information-and decision-support tools to strengthen the ability of policymakers, food policy experts, and researchers to respond quickly to dynamic developments in the world food system.
Food Price Shocks Tool
The Food Security Portal's Price Shocks Tool provides an interactive way to explore the impact of price changes on poverty. When you set hypothetical price shock(s) using the tool, net impacts of selected price changes are generated per household and the impact on poverty is automatically calculated accordingly.
Africa COVID-19 Food Price Monitor
The Food Price Monitor provides daily updates of prices in wholesale and retail markets for a wide range of food products. Alerts refer to price changes from the start of social distancing measures taken because of COVID-19 and are based on a pre-COVID-19 reference price.
Africa COVID-19 Food Price Media Analysis
While the impact of rising food prices may be clear, the root causes of such price increases often are not. The role of various short- and long-term factors, such as the growth of commodities futures markets and changing levels of grain stocks, continues to be debated. This tool generates up-to-date media daily analysis of factors that may influence commodity price volatility and food security related to COVID-19.
Early Warning Hub
Reliable, timely information on food production and availability, food prices, and hunger levels are key to helping decision makers anticipate and respond to food crises and their drivers. Early warning systems exist to collect, analyze, and disseminate such information.
The Early Warning Hub brings together in one place the alerts and other information from across several Early Warning Systems.
Food and Fertilizer Export Restrictions Tracker
The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict continues to expose global food security to high uncertainty, exacerbating already soaring food prices stemming from COVID-19-induced supply disruptions and drought-reduced yields. As seen in past global food price crises, some countries have begun restricting food trade with the objective of controlling domestic food inflation. These restrictions can have dire unintended consequences for vulnerable people in food-importing countries, increasing prices and exacerbating food insecurity.
Excessive Food Price Variability Early Warning System
The Excessive Food Price Variability Early Warning System is a tool of the Food Security Portal that identifies periods of excessive price variability (i.e. price variability that exceeds a pre-established threshold), and it is updated on a daily basis to identify days that are within periods of high, moderate, and low price variability.
Control Panel for Risk Monitoring
The control panel for real-time monitoring of risk factors is an innovative tool that brings together information on various drivers of food crises, including conflict and climate-related shocks.
Food Security Simulator
The Food Security Simulator is an innovative, easy-to-use MS-Excel-based tool for assessing the potential short-term impacts of food price or household income shocks on food security and people’s diets.
The Simulator is an ideal tool for first-cut forward-looking evaluations of direct, household-level outcomes of economic crises and policy responses in a timely manner.