Food and hunger

Abstract

This chapter outlines the main contours of global food security governance over the past 80 years. First, it maps the evolution of understandings of food security and traces the history of food security governance at the global level in the twentieth century. Second, it outlines the challenges to global food security governance presented by both the 2007-08 food crisis and the COVID-19 induced food crisis that began in 2020. The chapter makes the case that both crises illustrate how fragmentation in global food security governance in recent decades has hindered the global response to episodes of extreme disruption to food systems on a global scale, despite reform efforts that have been put into place in response to those crises. The chapter concludes by discussing debates over future potential reforms of global food security governance.