This is a House of Commons Committee Special Report.
The International Development Committee published its Second Report of Session 2022–23, Food insecurity (HC 504) on 17 October 2022. The Government response was received on 1 September 2022 and is appended below.
The Government is grateful to the International Development Committee for its report on Food Insecurity. Robust scrutiny by Parliament is vital to ensuring our policies and programmes prioritise ways to make UK aid more effective. The government agrees with the Committee’s conclusion that the world faces a catastrophic hunger crisis, due to a combination of COVID, conflict and climate change and this could further be exacerbated next year with rising energy and fertiliser price. This is a crisis that the FCDO has been monitoring and responding to in partnership with other government departments. We continue to step up our long-standing support for food security globally.
This is a complex, multi-faceted problem with international and national consequences. The report is right to highlight the Horn of Africa as an area of concern, however, we are also focused on Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Nigeria, as well as the wider Sahel region, all of whom are facing acute levels of food insecurity as defined by Integrated Phase Classification (IPC)1. A wider set of countries face systemic food security and macroeconomic challenges and are at risk of instability.
This response seeks to address the Committee’s recommendations in the order in which they appear in the ‘Conclusions and Recommendations’.
16. In order to tackle the immediate threats posed by the hunger crisis, the Government must:
a) publish a comprehensive strategy setting out its plan to address food insecurity; and
Partially Accept
The response below outlines the FCDO’s comprehensive action plan to address famine risk and food insecurity. We would be happy to make the latest full version available to the Committee on request. A summary of the UK government’s aims contained in the action plan are below:
i) Getting the grain out of Ukraine to help stabilise prices. By continuing to support the UN grain deal and supporting Ukrainian transport infrastructure.
ii) Prioritising our humanitarian resources to the most vulnerable in the countries at greatest risk of famine.
iii) Securing a coordinated international response. Together with allies develop a campaign to use UN General Assembly (UNGA), the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Annual Meetings and G20 Summit this autumn to act for famine prevention and address global fertiliser supply.
iv) Boosting fertiliser availability to avoid a food availability crisis in 2023. We will work with G7 and likeminded to deliver a coordinated global fertiliser security response, including increasing supply via the G7, enabling market transparency and trade, and supporting production in developing countries.
v) Expanding disaster risk finance and insurance cover to help protect against future drought for up to 12 Sahel, East and Southern African countries.
vi) Lobbying international partners to remove protectionist agricultural export restrictions. By working with our embassies to lobby food exporting countries with significant export restrictions, to soften those restriction and let trade flow and encouraging others not to impose restrictions and if they do, to do so transparently and inform WTO.
vii) Keep UK sanctions under review in relation to developing countries’ ability to access food and fertiliser, and consider any mitigations required.
viii) Influencing the Multilateral development banks to substantially frontload resources and take action to support the most vulnerable counties.
b) increase humanitarian funding for food assistance programmes to reflect increased global food and fuel costs and to meet need.
Accept
There is a small window to act early to avert the worst outcomes of food insecurity. We are working with partners across the humanitarian system, including the UN, other donors, and the International Financial Institutions, to take early and coordinated action, prioritise and disburse funding as quickly as possible to the most vulnerable – especially women and girls – and promote anticipatory action to prevent recurring cycles of famine.
Specifically for the Horn of Africa we have:
We are one of the largest donors to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF)3, which is pioneering initiatives on anticipatory action, including in Ethiopia and Somalia. Looking more long term the government is intending to increase our humanitarian funding to £3 billion over the next 3 years as set out in the international development strategy (IDS4). This government’s manifesto5 also includes a commitment to work towards ending preventable deaths, including through improved nutrition for women, adolescent girls and children.
17. To promote sustainable agriculture, the Government must increase support to agricultural development programmes in middle-and-lower-income countries.
Accept
To promote sustainable agriculture to deliver inclusive economic development and sustainable food security, poor and vulnerable countries whose food security and growth depend on agriculture investment and transformation, need increased support for the sector. This is the case in particular in those countries most affected by the exacerbating impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Our agriculture portfolio pursues the dual objective set out in our Agriculture Development Policy6 of promoting food security while also helping smallholders to benefit from sustainably increased incomes. Our new International Development Strategy7 reiterates our commitment to develop lasting solutions to challenges in the global food system.
Our British Investment Partnerships and humanitarian assistance help build resilient food security and drive sustainable transformation in the longer term. For example, at this year’s Commonwealth Summit and at the G7 Leaders’ Summit held in June, the UK pledged £372 million8 in aid to provide immediate and longer-term relief to countries on the frontline of this crisis. This also includes £133 million for research and development partnerships with world-leading agricultural and scientific organisations, £37 million for the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development, and £17.7 million through the FCDO’s Green Growth Centre of Expertise to improve the effective use of fertiliser and increase food production in countries.
The UK also recently allocated a further £10 million to the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP)9, bringing the UK’s total contribution to £186 million as the fourth largest donor to this global initiative that was created in 2009 specifically to provide rapid, inclusive and sustainable solutions to food security crises such as this one, with a focus exclusively on the poorest and most vulnerable countries. The UK has co-chaired and shaped this global initiative over the past few years to deliver maximum impact for poor people’s food security while transforming the food system and greening the agriculture sector, through direct public and private sector finance, technical assistance, and support to producer organisations. This new UK funding will be spent on immediate actions to drive green agriculture investments and to help mitigate the scale of the emerging humanitarian emergency. GAFSP is also currently preparing further support for governments and farmers associations for the best proposals submitted for two calls for proposals, to be launched at UNGA.10
In our COP Presidency year and beyond, the UK Government is committed to leading the way on global climate action. We have supported initiatives designed to assist smallholder farmers in the most climate vulnerable countries to adopt sustainable and resilient agricultural practices and to secure access to local markets. For example, the FCDO’s Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness programme (CASA) works with producer organisations and agri-businesses in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to increase sourcing of agri-food products from smallholder farmers and to help farmers adopt climate-smart and productivity-enhancing agriculture technologies.
The most recent review of the FCDO’s commercial agriculture portfolio11 found that:
18. The Government must work with international partners to:
a) empower the Global Alliance for Food Security to develop international solutions to regional food security challenges. That should include securing the provision, delivery and distribution of food assistance to countries in need in order to avert famine. Such initiatives should prioritise countries with communities classed on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification as in Phase 3 (Crisis) or above;
Partially Accept
The Global Alliance for Food security (GAFS) was set up with the aim to ensure that the support reaches those in most urgent need and coordinates aid measures relating to food security. It has evolved since the report was published, but it is not yet at a stage of securing the provision, delivery and distribution of food assistance, however they remain one of the avenues in which we coordinate with other international donors and multilateral organisations. There is also consensus that GAFS must not duplicate processes that already work well.
We are encouraging greater coherence and coordination in the global humanitarian and development response to the current crisis, which is broader than merely food assistance, along the lines of the GAFS priorities of “advise”, “act”, and “learn and adapt”. The government has remained engaged with the Global Alliance for Food security (GAFS) and continues to feed into a number of their activities in development, with a focus on GAFS needing to add value and not do harm.
Specifically, we have encouraged GAFS to use the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification12 to direct international efforts in food assistance and more long-term approaches to supporting food security. FCDO has also been a major donor and supporter of Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, both of its acute and chronic food security classification methodologies and scaled-up rollout, and we remain an advocate for its use and expansion to countries not currently covered who may face food insecurity as the crisis develops. We will also continue to make data available to them as they continue their work.
As above we are also remain heavily engaged with Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) which represents a more developed platform for global multilateral coordination where the focus is on the poorest and most vulnerable countries. The UK has also been taking action to address food security and cohere the international response through the G7 and G20. At the G7 Summit, leaders issued a Food Security Statement with commitments including $4.5bn additional funding to support vulnerable countries. We are also a signatory to the US Call to Action on food security, and are working closely with allies and partners to progress urgent international action.
In June 2022 both Minister Prentis and Minister Ford attended a Ministerial Conference which aimed to bring together ministers from the G7 members and the Champions’ Group, as well as from key donor countries and the most vulnerable and two most affected countries, with key stakeholders from the United Nations system, philanthropists and civil society to discuss joint action
b) support Ukraine to transport its food produce for both internal consumption and international export to help feed in-need communities. Such support should include the supply of protective equipment and transport vehicles to Ukraine and participation in multilateral initiatives to facilitate food exports by Ukraine.
Accept
Until Russia’s invasion, Ukraine was one of the largest exporters of grains and vegetable oils, exporting grain to meet the needs of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Previously 96% of Ukrainian grain was exported through the Black Sea. The UK welcomes the agreement that was reached in Istanbul on 23 July 2022 between Ukraine, Russia and Turkey13, and witnessed by the UN, which has allowed exports by sea to resume. The agreement establishes a safe maritime corridor for the export of grain and other foodstuffs from the Ukrainian Black Sea ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi. The first shipment left the port of Odesa on 1 August and by the end of the first month 65 ships had departed carrying 1.5 million tonnes of agricultural products. The UK pushed for this agreement, putting the need to get grain out of Ukraine and into world markets firmly on the agenda of G7, NATO and G20 summits. Ministers and officials consistently raised the issue with their counterparts. The UK has also provided military equipment which helps give Ukraine the confidence it can defend its ports against Russian attack. It is important that Russia continues to meet in full its commitments under the agreement signed in Istanbul so that exports by sea can further increase and continue at scale in the long-term helping to alleviate the global food security crisis.
The UK also welcomes the successful efforts made by the EU under its Solidarity Lanes programme to rapidly increase the amount of grain that Ukraine can export by rail, road and barge across land and river borders into EU Member States. Export volumes have risen from 300,000t in March to an estimated 3mt in August. The UK’s £10m of support to Ukrainian Railways will help in the repair of bridges and other rail infrastructure and also facilitate the export of grain by rail both to ports and across land borders.
1 IPC, ‘IPC and Famine’ accessed 1 September 2022.
2 FCDO, ‘UK commits millions to helping the world’s most vulnerable on World Humanitarian Day’, 19 August 2022.
3 UN ‘Central Emergency Response Fund’ accessed 1 September.
4 FCDO, ‘UK government’s strategy for international development’, 16 May 2022.
5 Conservative Party, Conservative Party Manifesto 2019, 2019.
6 DFID, DFID Conceptual Framework on Agriculture, 2015.
7 FCDO, ‘UK government’s strategy for international development’, 16 May 2022.
8 Prime Minister’s Office, ‘PM pledges new support for countries on the food security frontline’ 24 June 2022.
9 GAFSP, ‘About’, accessed 1 September 2022.
10 UN General Assembly, ‘Agenda of the 77th Session’, accessed 1 September 2022.
11 CASA, Commercial Agriculture Portfolio Review 2022, May 2021.
12 IPC, ‘IPC and Famine’ accessed 1 September 2022.
13 UN News, Grain deal ‘victory for diplomacy,’ UN chief tells journalists in Ukraine’ 18 August 2022.