Currently, the world is faced with an unprecedented call for action at a moment in which three countries (Somalia, Yemen, and northeast Nigeria) have been identified at risk of famine, after the declaration of famine in South Sudan early this year. The demand for humanitarian and resilience assistance is escalating.

Against this background, informing the global and national food security community on the risk of food crises and on the severity of such crises is of fundamental importance. Although significant improvements have been made over time in the methods and technologies used to improve the quality and timeliness of food security assessments and monitoring systems, a comprehensive global pictures of food crises is still often missing.

In line with the indicative framework for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the recommendations of “The One Humanity: Shared Responsibility Report”, the European Union, WFP and FAO have joined forces to coordinate needs assessment to increase the impact of humanitarian and resilience responses through the preparation of the Global Report on Food Crises 2017.

This Global Report aims to enhance coordination and decision making through a neutral analysis that informs programming and implementation. The key objective and strength of the report is to establish a consultative and consensus-based process to compile food insecurity analyses from around the world into a global public product. The Report compares and clarifies results of food security analyses conducted during the period January-December 2016 by various partners and across geographical areas to provide a clear picture of acute food insecurity situation. In addition, a detailed food security analysis is presented for those countries and/or population groups facing high severity and magnitude of acute food insecurity based on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)/Cadre Harmonisé (CH) classification.