The impacts on global food security and nutrition of the military conflict in Ukraine

Many towns and regions in Ukraine are experiencing a breakdown of the enabling environment for FSN, including the deterioration of health services, water and energy services, care of children and the elderly, social protection, and education systems. [...] At the same time, higher fertilizer and energy prices have resulted from the disruption to oil, natural gas and fertilizer exports from Russia and Belarus, which is pushing up the cost of farming around the world and hence elevating food prices (FAO, 2022). [...] In the backdrop is the global environment and climate crisis, which is creating major challenges for food systems, and weakening the capacity to provide food security and nutrition for all (IPCC 2022). [...] This response must prioritize the food security and nutritional needs of those who are most affected by hunger and malnutrition, due to the multidimensional and intersectional aspects of inequality and vulnerability (for example, age, gender, location, and social group). [...] Longer-term responses to these crises require governments to harmonize strategies to build more resilient food systems, including those that prioritize diversity – in production systems, markets, and diets – to better manage growing risks such as war, climate, and disease, that threaten food systems and FSN, and that make food systems more adaptive, sustainable, and just, including in the face of.