The humanitarian-development-peace nexus for global food security: Responding to the climate crisis, conflict, and supply chain disruptions

Abstract

Global food insecurity has worsened since 2015, driven by conflict, the COVID19 pandemic, and the Ukraine war. This explorative article argues that a new ‘whole-of-UN’ approach is needed, oriented around the humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) nexus, which has been operationalized at project and program levels, but not the global. Using the impacts of the war in Ukraine on food security in the Middle East and North Africa as a case study, we demonstrate how interconnected global crises could benefit from employing the HDP nexus as an interconnected global response. Drawing on detailed, country-specific commodity import data, we analyse vulnerabilities based on import dependencies. Broadening the argument, we show how conflict mitigation through to post-conflict recovery activities are no longer sufficient at the national or regional scale to address the challenges posed. Combining the pillars of food security, with the nexus approach, and a focus on the UN agencies response to the Crisis, we explore what policies and processes could enable a shift toward institutionalizing the nexus as a new operational standard.