This year, acute food insecurity is projected to reach a new peak, surpassing the food crisis experienced in 2007-2008. A combination of factors—including greater poverty and supply chain disruptions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, and high commodity prices—has increased food and nutrition insecurity. This is a multifaceted crisis, affecting access to and availability of food, with long-term consequences for health and productivity. The World Bank has scaled up its efforts to bolster food security, reduce risks, and strengthen food systems over the short and long term. Urgent action is needed across governments and multilateral partners to avert a severe and prolonged food crisis.
At the same time, food availability is declining. For the first time in a decade, global cereal production will fall in 2022 relative to 2021. More countries are relying on existing food stocks and reserves to fill the gap, raising the risk if the current crisis persists. And rising energy and fertilizer prices—key inputs to produce food—threaten production for the next season, especially in net fertilizer-importing countries and regions like East Africa.
Globally, food security is under threat beyond just the immediate crisis. Growing public debt burdens, currency depreciation, higher inflation, increasing interest rates, and the rising risk of a global recession may compound access to and availability of food, especially for importing countries. At the same time, the agricultural food sector is both vulnerable and a contributor to climate change, responsible for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. And agricultural productivity growth is not staying ahead of the impacts of climate change, contributing to more food-related shocks. For example, an unprecedented multi-season drought has worsened food insecurity in the Horn of Africa, with Somalia on the verge of famine.
The World Bank is responding to this escalating crisis with four areas of actions: (i) supporting production and producers, (ii) facilitating increased trade in food and production inputs, (iii) supporting vulnerable households, and (iv) investing in sustainable food security. It has made over $26 billion available for short- and long-term food security interventions in 69 countries, including active interventions in 22 of the 24 hunger hotspots identified as countries with the most pressing needs by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme. Since April 2022, the World Bank has disbursed $8.1 billion, approximately evenly split between crisis response and long-term resilience projects. In the short term, projects like the Emergency Project to Combat the Food Crisis in Cameroon will provide 98,490 beneficiaries with emergency food and nutrition assistance with support from the World Food Programme. In addition to supporting vulnerable households, governments of food-exporting countries can improve global food security by limiting measures like export bans and stockpiling of food. In the longer term, governments can make an enormous difference by repurposing public spending on agricultural policies and support for a more resilient and sustainable food system that directly improves health, economies, and the planet.
These actions and newly released funding underline the scale of the crisis. Timely, coordinated, and sustained action through partnerships such as the Global Alliance on Food Security can maximize the impact of new policies and funding, and mitigate the scale of the crisis. The time to act is now.