The recently published overviews of food insecurity in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (FAO) confirm that undernourishment has increased all over the planet. The Global Nutrition Report 2021 (UN) confirms this trend and stresses that diets remain globally unhealthy and have tremendous impacts on the environment.

These reports highlight the economic downturn caused by the pandemic and its effect on the affordability of the food for the poorest, and the role that enhanced social protection could play to address the problem.

The fact that around 80% of the world’s extremely poor people live in rural areas, where food is produced (WWF), calls for more inclusive food systems. CIRAD, FAO, and OECD advocate for supporting small-scale production (agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture) to alleviate poverty. Agroecology and agricultural cooperatives are among the solutions favoured by OECD, the Nature Conservancy and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food to improve livelihoods, boost environmentally-friendly food production, and foster political and social justice.

Interestingly, the World Inequality Report 2022 brings into perspective these issues: the distribution of wealth in the least developed countries is highly unequal and the situation of the poorest is worsening. These inequalities have been exacerbated during the pandemic.

Among the other drivers of food insecurity, the World Bank stresses that 80% of acutely food-insecure people live in fragile and conflict affected situations, and advocates for sound natural resources management to prevent conflict and alleviate poverty. The TNC report proposes a new approach to improve the management of natural resources and ecosystems: a spatial analysis of food systems to ease the identification of the most relevant nature-based solutions.