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A timely publication as world leaders deliberate the causes of the latest bouts of food price volatility and search for solutions that address the recent velocity of financial, economic, political, demographic, and climatic change. As a collection compiled from a diverse group of economists, analysts, traders, institutions and policy formulators – comprising multiple methodologies and viewpoints - the book exposes the impact of volatility on global food security, with particular focus on the world’s most vulnerable. A provocative read.

This guide is designed for those involved in developing action plans to address the current issue of high food prices. It is divided into three parts. The first part provides background information on the context, purpose, audience and structure of the guide. The second part provides some essential remarks on processes that lead to decisions on actions to be taken as well as the analytical underpinning required to ensure that instruments used are well adapted to the specific conditions within the country. The third part looks at instruments that could be used to immediately address high food prices. They are classified by the domain of intervention (macro-economy, [...]

Micronutrient deficiencies affect more than two billion people in the world today. With long-ranging effects on health, learning ability and productivity they contribute to the vicious cycle of malnutrition, underdevelopment and poverty. Food-based approaches, which include food production, dietary diversification and food fortification, are sustainable strategies for improving the micronutrient status of populations and raising levels of nutrition. "Combating Micronutrient Deficiencies: Food-based Approaches" focuses on practical, sustainable actions for overcoming micronutrient deficiencies through increased availability, access to and consumption of adequate quantities and appropriate varieties of safe, good quality food. The volume brings together the available knowledge, success stories and lessons [...]

The FAPDA web-based tool is one of the major components of FAPDA activities. The tool was developed in 2011 with the support of the Government of the Kingdom of Spain so as to provide an electronic repository for food and agriculture policy decisions.
 The aim is to serve all stakeholders such as governments, development partners, regional economic organizations, civil society organizations, researchers, policy makers and the private sector. Between 2008 and 2016, more than 9000 policy decisions have been gathered and then consolidated on this web-based tool which allows for the identification of policy trends and the analysis of policy mixes and [...]

Published under the The Food and Agriculture Policy Decision Analysis (FAPDA) project, this paper reviews the policy decisions taken from October 2008 to mid 2010. It aims to analyze the policy trends during the period that followed the peak of the 2008 Food Security Crisis. It seeks to identify possible changes in the policy orientation adopted by selected FAO member countries. This paper aspires to answer to the question raised as the result of the 2009 FAO publication on "Country Responses to the Food Security Crisis" which had found quite deep changes in the orientation of policies put in place by [...]

The origins of this volume stem from interactions with developing country government offi cials and policy makers on trade-related issues, where it became apparent that there was a need to supplement the debates related to multilateral trade negotiations, and associated trade capacity-building activities, with a clearer understanding and refl ection among policy makers and those seeking to provide policy advice, on the type of agriculture sector trade policy that would be desirable for diff erent developing countries, in boosting their growth and enhancing their food security situation. The perception is that many developing countries are not in a strong position to articulate their strategy for trade negotiations and end up being [...]

The report intends to examine the short-term measures adopted by some 81 countries and is intended for policy makers and analysts.    Prices of staple foods, such as rice and vegetable oil, have doubled between January and May 2008. High food prices together with record petroleum and fertilizer prices have spurred inflation. Poorer households with a larger share of food in their total expenditures are suffering the most from high food prices, due to the erosion of purchasing power, which has a  negative impact on food security, nutrition and access to school and health services. Higher prices also result in [...]

The rural sector’s lack of resilience to climatic accidents seems to be one of the main reasons for the transformation of climatic accidents into environmental, economic and social disasters for local communities. Thus, the integration of activities geared towards the improvement of community resilience seems to be of utmost priority. This can be achieved by integrating prevention and risk-management tools into already existing social safety-nets within the framework of food security and poverty reduction strategies. “Social protection initiatives are as much at risk from climate change as other development approaches. They are unlikely to succeed in reducing poverty if they do [...]

After sketching the mutual links between economic growth, agriculture, technology, poverty reduction and external factors, this paper analyses the implications of recent international price shocks on welfare and growth, notably energy and agricultural products, for Burkina Faso, a less industrialised, low-income, food-deficit, net oil-importing country. The socio-economic impacts of the above-mentioned external shocks are analysed by means of a Computable General Equilibrium model (CGE). The paper also discusses the extent to which technological changes in agriculture, specifically the introduction of “Good Agricultural Practices” (GAP) towards “conservation agriculture”, could mitigate the welfare and growth losses derived by international price shocks.  Additionally, it is shown [...]

This issue paper aims at introducing selected analytical approaches for quantitative analysis of the socio-economic impacts of policies. In the first part of the document, after considering a set of basic questions that a quantitative policy impact analysis has usually to address in order to be useful for informing decision-making processes; some definitions and insights on policy-relevant elements such as policy objectives, policy instruments and impact models are provided. The document then briefly describes the use of counterfactual analysis for socio-economic policy impact analysis. The second part of the work focuses on the review of selected quantitative analytical approaches frequently applied [...]