The Ukraine war and rising commodity prices: Implications for developing countries.

The Russia-Ukraine war's impact on food, fuel, and fertilizer prices is a major concern for global poverty and food insecurity. Despite numerous studies and editorials on the risks and challenges of the crisis, there is little quantitative analysis of its consequences for developing countries. We use national economywide models to measure the near-term impacts of the crisis on agrifood systems, poverty, and food insecurity in 19 countries. Despite wide variations across countries, results confirm the adverse impacts of the crisis, with a total 27.2 and 22.3 million more people pushed into poverty and hunger, respectively. Agrifood systems and poverty are more vulnerable to rising fuel and fertilizer prices, whereas hunger and diet quality are more affected by higher food prices.

Deciphering the Biodiversity-Production Mutualism in the Global Food Security Debate.

Without changes in consumption, along with sharp reductions in food waste and postharvest losses, agricultural production must grow to meet future food demands. The variety of concepts and policies relating to yield increases fail to integrate an important constituent of production and human nutrition - biodiversity. We develop an analytical framework to unpack this biodiversity-production mutualism (BPM), which bridges the research fields of ecology and agroeconomics and makes the trade-off between food security and protection of biodiversity explicit. By applying the framework, the incorporation of agroecological principles in global food systems are quantifiable, informed assessments of green total factor productivity (TFP) are supported, and possible lock-ins of the global food system through overintensification and associated biodiversity loss can be avoided.

Covid-19 lockdowns, income distribution, and food security: An analysis for South Africa.

Absent vaccines and pharmaceutical interventions, the only tool available to mitigate its demographic effects is some measure of physical distancing, to reduce contagion by breaking social and economic contacts. Policy makers must balance the positive health effects of strong distancing measures, such as lockdowns, against their economic costs, especially the burdens imposed on low income and food insecure households. The distancing measures deployed by South Africa impose large economic costs and have negative implications for the factor distribution of income. Labor with low education levels are much more strongly affected than labor with secondary or tertiary education. As a result, households with low levels of educational attainment and high dependence on labor income would experience an enormous real income shock that would clearly jeopardize the food security of these households. However, in South Africa, total incomes for low income households are significantly insulated by government transfer payments. From public health, income distribution and food security perspectives, the remarkably rapid and severe shocks imposed because of Covid-19 illustrate the value of having in place transfer policies that support vulnerable households in the event of 'black swan' type shocks.

Multidimensional Nutritional Welfare of Children in Southern Africa: A Human Rights Consistent Approach.

The last 10 years have witnessed a surge in international focus on the long-term health and socioeconomic impacts of malnutrition. Here, we employ a rights consistent approach to evaluate the nutritional welfare of children under 5 years in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Specifically, we apply a first order dominance (FOD) approach to multidimensional welfare measurement. In this context, nutritional welfare dimensions are treated as rights. With the FOD approach, comparisons across time and space adhere to key principles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For comparison, we also apply the Alkire-Foster (AF) approach, which is well known for its application in the United Nations Development Programme's Multidimensional Poverty Index. Indicators relevant to the nutritional welfare of young children are drawn from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) from the early- to mid-2000s and the most recent data point. Four common welfare indicators crucial to child nutrition are employed in both the FOD and AF approaches: stunting/wasting, drinking water, sanitation facilities, and mother's education. Over time, all countries advanced the nutritional wellbeing of children at the national and rural levels. Malawi made the most pronounced gains improving its rank among the 5 countries considered from fourth to second among nations and among urban areas. Though Mozambique made substantial progress in access to urban and rural water, rural sanitation, and urban education, relatively small gains in stunting and wasting widened the nutritional welfare gap with its neighbors. Nationally, nutritional welfare levels in Mozambique remain notably low ranking below the rural areas in all other countries. Even urban areas in Mozambique are ranked below rural Malawi and rural Zimbabwe. Stagnation or decline in access to safe urban water and/or sanitation, as well as nutrition in Mozambique, prevented advance in the urban areas of Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Effects of food price shocks on child malnutrition: The Mozambican experience 2008/2009.

A propitiously timed household survey carried out in Mozambique over the period 2008/2009 permits us to study the relationship between shifts in food prices and child nutrition status in a low income setting. We focus on weight-for-height and weight-for-age in different survey quarters characterized by very different food price inflation rates. Using propensity score matching techniques, we find that these nutrition measures, which are sensitive in the short run, improve significantly in the fourth quarter of the survey, when the inflation rate for basic food products is low, compared to the first semester or three quarters, when food price inflation was generally high. The prevalence of underweight, in particular, falls by about 40 percent. We conclude that the best available evidence points to food penury, driven by the food and fuel price crisis combined with a short agricultural production year, as substantially increasing malnutrition amongst under-five children in Mozambique.

Adapting to climate change: an integrated biophysical and economic assessment for Mozambique.

Mozambique, like many African countries, is already highly susceptible to climate variability and extreme weather events. Climate change threatens to heighten this vulnerability. In order to evaluate potential impacts and adaptation options for Mozambique, we develop an integrated modeling framework that translates atmospheric changes from general circulation model projections into biophysical outcomes via detailed hydrologic, crop, hydropower and infrastructure models. These sector models simulate a historical baseline and four extreme climate change scenarios. Sector results are then passed down to a dynamic computable general equilibrium model, which is used to estimate economy-wide impacts on national welfare, as well as the total cost of damages caused by climate change. Potential damages without changes in policy are significant; our discounted estimates range from US$ 2.3 to US $7.4 billion during 2003-2050. Our analysis identifies improved road design and agricultural sector investments as key 'no-regret' adaptation measures, alongside intensified efforts to develop a more flexible and resilient society. Our findings also support the need for cooperative river basin management and the regional coordination of adaptation strategies.