Paper details

Paper authors	Luka Kuol, University of Juba
In panel on	Famine and Food Insecurity: New Trends and Systems or Politics as usual?
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person & Online

Abstract

There has been in recent years a drastic increase in the levels of acute food insecurity and surge of famine in some countries of the world. In response to this food crisis, the international community scaled up humanitarian assistance. Despite this significant increase in humanitarian assistance, the levels of acute food insecurity persist and outpace financial allocations. This trend is not expected to abate anytime soon, and it calls for an urgent and major rethinking of how to prevent food crises and famine. Rather than only responding once needs have reached a critical level, there should also be a strong focus on reducing risk and susceptibility to famine in the first place. In recognition of the urgency to act now to prevent famine, the United Nations Security Council adopted in 2018 Resolution 2417 that condemns the use of mass starvation as a method of warfare and a clear violation of humanitarian law. Importantly, the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Task Force (HLTF) on Preventing Famine was established in 2021 with a singular mandate of famine prevention and response. In discharging this mandate, the HLTF may need a thorough and evidence-based understanding of the drivers of famine with the aim of providing practical intervention options for famine prevention and response. There has been a significant development in understanding how political, economic, and environmental conditions interact and produce famine systems. However, such an understanding of the famine system has not been synthesized into a framework that would provide coherent pathways to famine prevention and response. Based on the existing literature on famine and food security, the paper reviews the available food security frameworks and finds that these frameworks do not specifically address the recurrent famine in some countries. The paper will argue for the need to develop a more robust framework for a better famine understanding and intervention. The significance of such a framework will be validated by evidence from the countries that have been susceptible to recurrent acute food insecurity and famine such as Somalia and Haiti by providing context-specific understanding of the drivers of famine and options for its prevention.

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