A new network to achieve joint global food security assessments and joint responses to food crises was launched in Istanbul by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the European Union.
The goal of the Global Network for Food Insecurity, Risk Reduction and Food Crises Response is to enhance the impact of future responses to food crises at the global level by regularly producing, in real time, joint reports based on key analyses and containing timely response options.
The network’s pilot publication “Global analysis of food and nutrition security situation in food crisis hotspots 2016” covers 70 countries affected by a food crisis in 2015, including chronically vulnerable countries. According to the report, currently some 240 million people across 70 countries are in a food stress situation, including 80 million people in food crisis (figures as of January 2016). Nearly half of those people are located in countries affected by the El Niño phenomenon.