What's New

While the 2015-2016 El Niño cycle is not expected to significantly reduce global cereal production levels, according to a new IFPRI policy brief , the weather event is creating serious local food shortfalls in many regions of the world, including  Africa south of the Sahara. To address this, the brief calls for careful monitoring of production and prices in the region, the promotion of more transparent international and domestic trade policies, and expanded coverage of safety nets and nutrition programs for poor households, as well as a longer term perspective toward improvement

While drought continues to threaten food security and livelihoods throughout southern Africa and the Horn of Africa, some areas have seen increased rainfall in recent weeks, according to the latest FEWS Net Global Weather Hazards Summary .

A new book by the Center for Development Research (ZEF) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) , with support from the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) , examines the stability pillar of FAO’s four pillars of food security , focusing specifically on price volatility and extreme price events in food markets.

In developing regions like Africa south of the Sahara, a significant amount of food produced is lost during the pre-harvest, harvest, and post-harvest stages of the agricultural value chain. Such losses present a significant challenge for poverty reduction and food security because they both lower producers’ incomes and raise food prices for consumers. In addition, inefficiencies in the global food system, like food loss during production and processing, make that system much less environmentally sustainable by wasting scarce natural resources.

A series of reports from FEWS Net are reporting continued food insecurity in southern Africa, Ethiopia, and the Lake Chad region of Nigeria as a result of weather-related shocks and ongoing conflict.