Food Security and Livelihoods

In 2023, about 733 million people were affected by undernourishment, based on data from SOFI, the annual report on global food security and nutrition.

How to define food security?

We often hear terms such as ‘world hunger’, ‘malnutrition’ or even ‘famine’ in extreme cases. So what is “food insecurity”? Is it just another term for world hunger?

‘Food security’ and its opposite ‘food insecurity’ are terms that refer to a definition and situations that we know how to describe and measure with precision. Although often linked to malnutrition, food insecurity is not malnutrition, nor is it a disease.

Food security exists when every human being has, at all times, the physical, social and economic ability to access sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. There are several indicators to characterize the severity of food insecurity.

Food security is also very different from ‘food sovereignty’, which you may also have heard of. Food sovereignty refers to the militant dimension wherein people have the power to choose their agriculture and food systems. Food sovereignty thus questions the means and policies used to achieve food security. ‘World hunger’ is more of a matter of politics and communication, and the way “hunger” is measured is neither established nor stabilized. Finally, ‘famine’ is a state of extreme food deprivation, associated with high excess mortality, particularly among children, and extremely critical acute malnutrition.  

Action Against Hunger and its local partners collect information directly from the populations they support, to calculate the indicator results and interpret the food insecurity levels. However, at a global level, UN agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) use another term: ‘undernutrition’. Undernutrition is mostly calculated at a country level, using macro-economic data. It refers to the populations that consume too few kilocalories to remain active. About 733 million people were considered undernourished worldwide in 2023, according to the FAO’s SOFI report.  

How to measure food security?

Over the past 10 years, Action Against Hunger has worked with three international NGOs and several UN agencies in order to build a system that assesses the severity of food insecurity and anticipates food crises around the world. Thanks to this system, it is now possible to keep  funders and decision-makers informed and enable them to release emergency funds for a fast intervention from Action Against Hunger and other NGOs. This system, known as the “Integrated Framework for Food Insecurity Classification” (IPC / CH) is operational in over 30 countries that are vulnerable to food insecurity. Moreover, the IPC has helped prevent famine situations in recent years. The classification includes 5 levels of food insecurity, ranging from minimal food insecurity (phase 1) to extremely serious situations, typical of famine (phase 5).  Food assistance interventions must be carried out from the ‘crisis phase’ (phase 3) and greatly reinforced in the ‘emergency phase’ (phase 4). These situations are already characterized by excess mortality, particularly among children, due to malnutrition. For Action Against Hunger, the aim is to prevent food crises and strengthen the autonomy and resilience of communities, so that they can meet their own food needs.  However, there are many very complicated situations, fuelled by an upsurge in conflicts, limiting access to vulnerable populations, and by increasing climatic disturbances. Funds are limited in relation to needs as they do not meet the totality of humanitarian needs.  

What are the causes of food security?

A population can be food insecure in several situations. Sometimes, food is not available locally; this is called a ‘lack of food availability’. More frequently, food is available but too expensive for local income levels, and families are unable to buy it. In this case, we talk about ‘lack of accessibility’. Equally frequently, food is available and accessible but is of low nutritional quality, and the resources to preserve and cook it are inadequate. In these cases, we say that there is a ‘lack of use’. Finally, if a situation of availability, accessibility and use of food is very fragile and likely to deteriorate, we call it a ‘lack of stability’.   

The causes of these degradations and shortages that characterize food insecurity are well known; they are, above all, political and can be prevented with ambitious policies and programs to combat social and economic inequalities, and in particular the injustices and diseases caused by the globalized food system.  

Most reports are limited to mentioning the primary causes of food insecurity, citing year after year the ever-increasing number of conflicts, climate change and economic shocks. But tackling the causes of food insecurity and hunger in the world means looking at the causes of these conflicts and other shocks that lead to massive population displacements and excess mortality among the most fragile populations. 

Conflicts: a direct threat 

Conflicts and security problems are a direct cause of food insecurity. Conflicts can lead to the destruction of agricultural land and livestock production, the main factors in people’s livelihoods. Hunger is then used as a weapon of war. A practice denounced by NGOs such as Action Against Hungercontre la Faim and condemned by the UN Security Council through Resolution 2417 adopted in 2018. 

Conflicts also provoke massive population displacements. These security issues force people to abandon their land, their livestock and often their sources of income and food, leaving them in a precarious situation with no financial or food resources. 

In our globalized world, an armed conflict in one country can have consequences for the food security of another, as in the case of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which are respectively 2 of the world’s 3 main wheat exporters. The specialization of countries in one type of agricultural production or food threatens the food security of other countries dependent on their production. The Ukrainian conflict threatens the food security of countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar, which import almost all their wheat, a staple product for local populations. These conflicts and security problems also threaten the stability of food prices. The lack of availability of a product raises prices on the markets, thus impacting consumers’ purchasing power. 

The environment and climate change 

Climate change also contributes to the destruction of agricultural land. Droughts, floods, locust invasions and storms are destroying crops and threatening agriculture in southern countries, forcing them to adapt to the climate crisis. For example, in 2021, Madagascar faced the worst drought in 40 years in the south of the country, making agriculture in the region impossible. This crisis has been recognized by the UN as “the first hunger crisis due to climate change”.

How are climate and environmental issues taken into account?

In 2021, Action Against Hunger adopted an environmental and climate policy, in order to better support communities that are bearing the full force of the consequences of climate extremes, loss of biodiversity, and degradation of soil and water quality. On the field,  Action Against Hunger is working to preserve and restore mangroves, protect pollinating insects, etc., in order to prevent and reduce the impact of future humanitarian crises linked to the deterioration of ecological conditions. Action Against Hunger also works with local actors and meteorological services to anticipate extreme climatic events and provide support to the most vulnerable populations in anticipation of heavy rains, cyclones, coastal flooding and extreme temperatures. Finally, while taking action, Action Against Hunger has an environmental and climatic footprint of its own, and is now seeking to reduce it by rationalizing its operating methods and travel, and developing its technical solutions. Food assistance programs, for example, have an impact on the surrounding wood resources, as communities cook mainly with firewood or charcoal. Technical solutions would involve supporting these programs with improved ovens and stoves that consume fewer wood resources, with foodstuffs that require shorter cooking times, and with more efficient cooking equipment and culinary practices.  Today, Action Against Hunger is only at the beginning of the process of reducing its footprint. However, it is a priority, and our teams are working hard to achieve it.  

What are the world’s food crises?

Food crises are often the result of known factors such as conflicts, economic shocks, natural disasters, soaring food prices, etc… A food crisis is defined as a crisis that reaches phase 3 of the IPC/CH indicators. In 2022, around 258 million people in 58 countries and territories faced severe food insecurity, an increase on previous years. 

Which countries are food insecure? 

In reality, food insecurity is concentrated in just a few countries. In 2022, more than 40% of people in IPC/CH phase 3 or above lived in just five countries: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Yemen.

In Afghanistan, food insecurity is primarily the result of the country’s economic situation, with high unemployment and reduced livelihoods. The country is also suffering the effects of the climate crisis (flooding, drought). 

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, armed conflict, inter-community violence, population displacement and rising food prices have led to widespread food insecurity. 

Ethiopia has been hit by multiple disasters. Conflict, prolonged drought and flooding have led to increased population displacement and poverty. 

In Nigeria, food insecurity is largely due to conflict and limited access for humanitarian aid. 

Finally, in Yemen, the ongoing conflict since 2014 has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with a large proportion of the population being food insecure.

How can we combat food insecurity? What does Action Against Hunger do?  

Food security and livelihood interventions help to prevent food insecurity, of course, but also malnutrition and excess child mortality, mainly by acting on access to sufficient, healthy and nutritious food. These actions are most often combined with those of Action Against Hunger‘s other sectors of intervention, in order to act effectively on the various determinants of malnutrition.  

Most of the time, our interventions take the form of agricultural programs, local economic development and back-to-work services, carried out with and through local partners. These interventions help to build the autonomy and resilience of populations and families in the face of family shocks (the illness or death of a parent, etc.) or larger-scale shocks (drought, floods, etc.). 

Sometimes, however, communities are faced with even greater challenges (conflicts, several years of consecutive drought, etc.), which undermine their resilience. In such cases, Action Against Hungercontre la Faim has no choice but to intervene urgently to save lives, and deliver food assistance in the form of food, cash, or canteens for young children and their mothers in extreme situations.  

An example of intervention: the mangrove project in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Coastal communities in particular are already experiencing increased frequency and severity of coastal erosion and flooding due to the combined effects of rising sea levels and the destruction of natural areas. The majority of people living in these areas depend on natural resources, particularly mangroves, for their livelihoods, and overexploitation of these fragile environments jeopardizes their food security. The Sierra Leone country office has therefore set up a pilot project in the coastal zone of the Bonthe district, involving participatory diagnosis of community vulnerability to climate change, mangrove restoration, agroecology training, improved knowledge and transmission of climate information and warnings, and advocacy.

Community involvement 

The concerned community is involved at all levels and stages of the project, and we organise the transfer of the responsibilities to the community in question from the beginning of the project. When analyzing the situation, we identify traditional knowledge and means of crisis management to ensure that the food security activities implemented are well adapted to this community. For example, the RESILAC project is based on an adaptive method: before any activity is implemented, the teams ask the communities whether it is in line with their needs and way of life, and whether it will converge with their local specificities.