Using Local Knowledge to Enhance Food Systems Resilience

With food crises on the rise, with an estimated 295.3 million people facing high levels of acute food insecurity in 2024. In the face of these stark hunger levels, policymakers, humanitarian organizations, development practitioners, and private sector actors urgently need knowledge about how to effectively enhance the resilience of local and regional food systems.

Protracted crises, in which populations face chronic threats to their food security, livelihoods, and health, pose a particular challenge. According to a recent article in Food Security,  such crises are becoming the new norm, with nearly 90 percent of humanitarian aid now going to crises lasting anywhere from four to seven years.

The causes of such crises vary but include weather-related shocks, economic shocks, and conflict and civil unrest. Equally varied are the local contexts in which these crises arise, as well as the capacity and knowledge base of local populations to adapt to and bounce back from shocks. Building more resilient food systems in the face of protracted crises will require a localized, context-specific lens when it comes to the types of knowledge needed to support agrifood system transformation, the article argues. Its authors suggest the development of a Knowledge Agenda—a document describing systemic, structural, and local goals and targets and their interdependencies through the lens of knowledge types and platforms to help drive policy and advocacy decision-making—to help fill this need.

The concept of a knowledge agenda springs from the Agenda Knowledge for Development, a framework launched in 2017 and comprised of so-called “knowledge development goals” aimed at combining food system research and practical knowledge in order to drive sustainable development.

The article focuses on the development of a Knowledge Agenda in the Horn of Africa, specifically Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan, where populations are particularly vulnerable to protracted food crises. The proposed Knowledge Agenda for food systems resilience in the region includes 12 overarching knowledge goals:

1. Pluralistic, diverse and inclusive knowledge societies, with an emphasis on bridging the gap between policymakers and marginalized populations.
2. People-focused knowledge societies, with an emphasis on education and food systems literacy.
3. Strong local knowledge ecosystems, with an emphasis on reprioritizing local and Indigenous knowledge.
4. Effective knowledge partnerships, with an emphasis on cross-sectoral coordination and collaboration and bi-directional information flows.
5. Improved knowledge strategies for development organizations, with an emphasis on encouraging enhanced collaboration among humanitarian, development, and peace organizations and local communities to create better practices and develop more effective policies and funding strategies.
6. Knowledge captured, preserved and democratized, with an emphasis on building knowledge and common values into the local and regional culture.
7. Improved knowledge competencies and knowledge work, with an emphasis on strengthening educational bodies and knowledge societies for all.
8. Knowledge is safe, secure and sustainable, with an emphasis on freedom of education and information-sharing.
9. Legal knowledge is accessible, with an emphasis on ensuring marginalized populations engaged in food systems know their rights.
10. Institutions of higher education play an active role, with an emphasis on the creation of strong collaboration among national universities and educational centers around the world.
11. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) for all, with an emphasis on the establishment of early warning systems and the acknowledgment of the need for other types of media to be equitable and accessible.
12. Culture, values and beliefs central to food systems resilience, with an emphasis on the intergenerational transmission of values and beliefs to support sustainable values and land stewardship.

The emphasis on local and Indigenous knowledge and experiences, national universities and research institutions, and food systems as a cultural resource represents a paradigm shift in development analysis and implementation, the authors highlight. The purpose of this shift, in addition to making food systems more equitable and inclusive of populations that have far too often been marginalized and silenced, is to create a multi-stakeholder perspective to ensure food systems are not looked at through just one lens. This will help ensure greater resilience in the face of food crises, especially protracted crises.

Such Knowledge Agendas have already been adapted in several contexts, including a Uganda-based and a regional African agenda. The article’s authors hope to use their proposed agenda to contribute to discussions about how the Agenda Knowledge for Development framework can be more easily adapted to other national, regional, or systems contexts.

Ensuring that all voices are heard and all knowledge and experiences learned from is an important first step in helping regions and populations, such as the Horn of Africa, recover from protracted food crises—and prevent future crises from beginning.

Sara Gustafson is a freelance writer and communications consultant.