Near-Real-Time Monitoring of Food Crisis Risk Factors: State of Knowledge and Future Prospects
Food security and nutrition security, particularly in low-income countries, continue to face significant challenges, from volatile food prices, climate change-driven shocks, and conflict to pandemics and economic downturns. A number of research efforts exist around the world to allow near-real-time monitoring of these and other risk factors that drive food crises. This work includes monitoring production-related information, climate and conflict data, price information, and other factors in order to identify the likelihood of acute food insecurity and help policy makers enact timely policy responses.
On May 8, the Food Security Portal will host a webinar on these important food crisis risk monitoring efforts. The event will highlight priority research and policy questions, identify gaps in existing monitoring efforts, and pinpoint opportunities for collaboration to inform policy. The organizers invite researchers, policy makers, and other stakeholders interested in this topic to attend this virtual event in order increase collaboration among research teams and expand the scope and reach of food crisis risk monitoring efforts.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
- What have been the most critical advances on the remote measurement of productivity and other food crisis risk factors, and what advances do you see moving forward?
- What constraints exist and are likely to continue in the provision of near-real-time monitoring of food crises?
- What opportunities exist for collaboration among institutions and research groups?
See the original post about this webinar on the Food Security Portal.
The Food Security Portal is an open-access project facilitated by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and sponsored by the European Commission.
Arif Husain
Dr. Arif Husain is Chief Economist and Director of the Food Security Analysis and Trends Service at United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Rome, Italy. Arif joined WFP in 2003 and since then he has served in many senior positions both in the field and at Headquarters. He has also worked for the World Bank and taught at the Hubert H Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Arif’s work focuses on analyzing food security and welfare conditions in developing countries to inform humanitarian response. His research interests include application of information technologies to improve humanitarian response; understanding linkages between poverty, hunger, conflict and migration; and analysing how global economic shocks impact food security, social protection and emergency and development assistance. Arif has a Ph.D. in agricultural and applied economics with a minor in forestry from the University of Minnesota.
Laura Glaeser
Chief of Party for the USAID Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET)
Mario Zappacosta
Team Leader of the FAO Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS)
Daniel Maxwell
Daniel Maxwell is the Henry J. Leir Professor in Food Security at the Friedman School of Nutrition, Science, and Policy. He directs the Food Security and Livelihoods in Complex Emergencies Research Program at the Feinstein International Center, and in 2016-2017, he served as the Acting Director of the Center. His recent research focuses on the re-emergence of famines in the 21st century and the politics of analyzing and declaring famine. Dan also researches food security, resilience programming and measurement, and livelihood systems under stress. He teaches courses on food security, humanitarian action, humanitarian policy, and food insecurity in situations of crisis and chronic vulnerability.
Prior to joining the faculty at Tufts, Dan worked for two decades at humanitarian agencies and research institutes in Uganda, Ghana, and Kenya. His most recent position was Deputy Regional Director for Eastern and Central Africa for CARE International.
He is the author, with Nisar Majid, of Famine in Somalia: Competing Imperatives, Collective Failures (Oxford University Press, 2016). He is the co-author, with Chris Barrett of Cornell University, of Food Aid After Fifty Years: Recasting Its Role (Routledge, 2005), and co-author with Peter Walker, of Shaping the Humanitarian World (Routledge, 2009).
He holds a B.Sc. from Wilmington College, a master’s degree from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.
Chris Barrett
Chris Barrett is Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor of Applied Economics and Management, and an International Professor of Agriculture, all at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, as well as a Professor in the Department of Economics and a Fellow of the David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, as well as Deputy Dean and Dean of Academic Affairs at the College of Business, all at Cornell University.
He has won several university, national and international awards for teaching, research and public outreach, and is an elected Fellow of both of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association and of the African Association of Agricultural Economists.
Kathy Baylis
Full Professor, Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois
Dr. Baylis helps stakeholders design agricultural, conservation, and trade policy to promote ecosystem preservation and international food security. She assesses the effectiveness of interventions and their consequences for global food security, the environment, and social welfare.
Dr. Baylis holds large academic experience and honours, having authored a number of publications.
David Laborde
Dr. David Laborde Debucquet joined IFPRI, Washington DC, in 2007. He is a Senior Research Fellow in the Markets, Trade and Institutions Division and the Theme Leader on Macroeconomics and Trade for IFPRI.
His research interests include globalization, international trade, measurement and modeling of protectionism, multilateral and regional trade liberalization as well as environmental issues (climate change, biofuels). He has developed the MAcMapHS6 and the ADEPTA databases on tariffs as well as the TASTE software. He is a contributor to the GTAP database and a GTAP research fellow since 2005. Recently, he has been focusing on costing the roadmap to achieving SDG2 in a globalized context while considering the role of goods, capital, and migration flows.
Beyond his work on databases, he has developed several partial and general equilibrium models applied to trade policy and environmental issues, including the MIRAGE and MIRAGRODEP models and their extensions.
He has participated and organized training sessions for researchers and policy makers in several developing countries, with a special focus on sub-Saharan Africa.
Prior to joining IFPRI, he was an Economist at the Centre d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales (CEPII), Paris between 2003 and 2007 and lecturer at the University of Pau (France). He received his PhD from the University of Pau in 2008. He has also worked as consultant for the European Commission, the Economic Commission for West Africa, the World Bank, USAID, and various UN agencies.