By David Stevenson, Abdul Kamara, Yero Baldeh, Martin Fregene, and Steven Were Omamo July 11, 2025 Humanitarian agencies around the world face a never-ending race against time to save lives in places where conflicts, extreme weather, and other shocks lead to collapsing economies, leaving populations facing hunger and other forms of food insecurity. Nigeria is a prime example. Across the
By Will Martin July 11, 2025 Latest in a series of posts focusing on potential impacts of U.S. tariff proposals. Read the others here, here, and here. The “Liberation Day” tariffs proposed by the United States on April 2 included a blanket 10% increase for countries with which the U.S. runs bilateral trade surpluses or small deficits, and a range of higher tariffs
By Alan de Brauw and Johann Swinnen July 14, 2025 Agrifood value chains (AVCs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have been expanding due to a range of factors, including income growth, urbanization, more market-oriented policies, globalization, and technological changes. Integrating smallholder farmers into those growing value chains, particularly for higher-value commodities, is an important path towards reducing poverty and generating employment
By Kibrom Abay, Hailemariam Ayalew Tiruneh, Zelalem Terfa, Joseph Karugia, and Clemens Breisinger July 16, 2025 Livestock supports the livelihoods of around 1 billion people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) (Thorne and Conroy 2017, Baltenweck et al. 2020). However, growth and productivity of the livestock sector in many LMICs are not keeping pace with the increasing demand for animal-source foods. Boosting the sector’s productivity
By Hagar ElDidi, Thomas Falk, Juan Felipe Ortiz-Riomalo, Franziska Auch, Wei Zhang, and Upeksha Hettiarachchi July 23, 2025 Shared natural resources such as cultivated land, water, wetlands, fisheries, and forests play a vital role in supporting human well-being but are often contested: Both between individuals and groups or between groups of competing resource users. These conflicts can be hard to manage; and
By Keith Wiebe, Elisabetta Gotor, and Evgeniya Anisimova July 23, 2025 We ask a lot of our food systems. We want them to feed and nourish a growing global population, support farmers’ livelihoods, adapt to climate change, preserve the environment, and make our food affordable. Is all of that possible, and if not, why? As the world grapples with overlapping crises
By Khalid Siddig July 25, 2025 Since April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a devastating war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. What began as a struggle for power has turned into a national catastrophe. More than 14 million people have been displaced. Health and education systems have collapsed and food insecurity threatens over half the population of about 50
By Jennifer Johnson Breastfeeding is an essential element in early childhood nutrition. Breast milk contains all the nutrients needed in a child’s first months, and breastfeeding yields broad health benefits for infants and later in life. Yet globally, fewer than half of infants under six months old are exclusively breastfed. Improving those numbers would make an enormous difference in children’s and public