## Box 1 & Box 2; Selected country cases and IMF engagement — Global Food Crisis Update (insea2023002)

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### Global food price dynamics and key drivers
- The IMF food price index rose by 54 percent between March 2020 (trough) and May 2022 (peak).
- The recent surge in international food prices is notable in amplitude, duration, and intensity compared with 2008 and 2012 crises.
- Four historically important drivers analyzed for cereals: harvest shocks, fertilizer prices, oil prices, and monetary policy.
- Key quantitative findings from impulse responses (cereals):
  - A typical (negative) global harvest shock of 1.9 percent induces an average 16 percent rise in cereal prices in the same quarter, peaking at 23 percent after three months.
  - An oil supply shock that raises oil prices by 10 percent increases cereal prices by about 2 percent after three to four quarters.
  - A 10 percent rise in fertilizer prices (due to a natural gas supply shock) has no immediate effects but leads to a 7 percent rise in cereal prices after one quarter.
  - A 100-basis point US monetary policy shock reduces cereal prices by about 13 percent with a one-quarter lag.
- Recent developments shaping near-term outlook:
  - Energy and fertilizer prices have recently decreased, although fertilizer prices remain elevated by historical standards.
  - Cereal supply is projected to pick up slightly in the 2023–24 season from the prior low level, but not enough to keep up with consumption, leading to a drawdown in stocks and upward price pressure (International Grain Council projection referenced).
  - Futures curves point to a reduction of only 5.6 percent of food prices in 2023 from current high levels.
  - Estimated contribution of higher international food prices to global average consumer food inflation in 2022: 6 percentage points.

### Transmission to domestic food inflation
- Average pass-through from international to domestic consumer food prices: around 25 percent.
- Considerable country-level heterogeneity in pass-through intensity and lag:
  - Consumers in emerging markets and LICs typically experience higher and faster price increases due to higher dependency on food imports and weaker currencies (examples: sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa).
  - Typical impact lag for global food price changes to be fully reflected in domestic food inflation: 6 to 12 months on average.

### Risks and outlook
- Global food supplies projected to drop to a three-year low in 2022–23 under a baseline scenario; some commodity markets crucial to food security face significant downside risks.
- Uncertainty about the path for global food prices in the short term remains exceptionally high.
- Rice prices: increased 17 percent since February 2022 and 9 percent in January 2023, linked to climate shock–induced poor harvests and high input costs.
- Duration and renewal uncertainty of the Black Sea Corridor Initiative noted (renewal on March 17, 2023 highlighted as welcome but its duration remains unclear).
- Low-income countries (LICs) face disproportionate harm due to weak growth prospects, large fiscal and external deficits, elevated debt levels, low reserve buffers, and high borrowing costs; 60 percent of LICs are at high risk of or in debt distress.

### Policy recommendations and priorities
- Immediate priorities to prevent worsening food insecurity and malnutrition:
  - Protect the most vulnerable households by providing timely and targeted support through effective social safety nets.
  - Maintain open trade and avoid distortive measures such as food export restrictions.
  - Foster food production and make it more climate resilient.
- Guidance on social support:
  - Countries relying on broad-based subsidies should consider gradual phasing out and shifting toward more targeted mechanisms, calibrated by the gap between domestic retail and international prices, available fiscal space, and feasibility of targeted safety nets.
- Trade-related actions:
  - Unwind barriers to trade, including export and import restrictions.
  - Avoid trade-distortive subsidies.
  - Address supply bottlenecks.
  - Increase transparency of trade-restricting measures through WTO notifications.
  - Preserve global market access for Ukraine’s food exports.
- Measures to support food production and supply:
  - Facilitate access to fertilizers and crop diversification to ensure availability and affordability.
  - Improve and increase arable fields, support development and distribution of high-quality seeds, and promote knowledge sharing of best farming practices.
  - Address logistical constraints and infrastructure gaps to reduce transport costs.
  - Enhance production and trade financing; support microfinancing, capacity development, public–private partnerships with governance frameworks, and attract impact investment.
- Climate-resilient agriculture strategy (multipronged; mindful of limited fiscal space):
  - Invest in new crop varieties, improve water management, and strengthen information dissemination for farmers.
  - Enhance access to finance and digitalization to support adaptation and private investment.
  - Advance property rights and extend telecommunications infrastructure to enable mobile banking and access to early warning systems and weather information.

### IMF response and financing actions
- IMF engagement: policy advice, capacity development, and financial support, coordinated with World Bank, WTO, WFP, FAO and other IOs.
- Financial support modalities emphasized:
  - Upper Credit Tranche (UCT)–quality programs for longer-term support and macroeconomic policy adjustment.
  - Food Shock Window (FSW) under the emergency financing toolkit for low-access emergency financing where UCT-quality programs are infeasible.
- Quantitative financial support and approvals:
  - Since February 2022, IMF committed an additional $11.4 billion (SDR 8.6 billion) to countries particularly affected by the global food crisis; $2 billion (SDR 1.5 billion) disbursed as of March 2023 (through new UCT-quality arrangements or augmentations for nine countries).
  - As of March 2023, six requests for financing under the new FSW approved; total FSW support reached $1.8 billion (SDR 1.4 billion).
- Examples of FSW approvals with access share noted:
  - Ukraine: access of SDR 1,006 million, 50 percent of quota.
  - Malawi: SDR 69.4 million, 50 percent of quota.
  - Guinea: SDR 53.6 million, 25 percent of quota.
  - Haiti: SDR 81.9 million, 50 percent of quota.
  - South Sudan: SDR 86.1 million, 35 percent of quota.
  - Burkina Faso: SDR 60.2 million, 50 percent of quota.
- Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST): supports efforts to build resilience to longer-term challenges such as climate change, addressing chronic food insecurity in many LICs.
- Coordination and operational collaboration:
  - IMF staff working with other IOs to jointly assess outlooks and exchange policy experience.
  - Examples of operational collaboration: WFP channeling FSW-provided funds for in-kind food distribution in Guinea; FSW for South Sudan envisages channeling part of support through WFP.

### Food and Agriculture Organization — Immediate and ongoing actions
- Rapid response plan for Ukraine (2023) organized around three pillars:
  - Pillar 1: restoring food security and self-sufficiency in front-line communities for half a million rural households.
  - Pillar 2: restoring critical agricultural production and value chains by providing diesel and gas generators, seeds for wheat, barley, oats, and peas, temporary and fixed modular storage units, and other needs.
  - Pillar 3: enhancing coordination and technical support to functioning critical food system services by supporting testing and certification for alternative grain export routes, restoring veterinary services, partnering with specialized organizations to facilitate the removal of explosive hazards from agricultural lands, and conducting damage and loss assessments.
  - Funding required for the three pillars: $205 million.
- Assess investment needs in Ukraine’s agricultural reconstruction and recovery and work with international financial institutions:
  - War-induced damage to the agriculture sector in Ukraine estimated at $2.2 billion (excluding irrigation and water, forestry, and fisheries).
  - Aggregate losses totaling $28.3 billion (as of June 1, 2022).
  - Total reconstruction and recovery needs from the public sector estimated at $18.7 billion over a 10-year period.
- Address animal health:
  - Key disease risks: African swine fever, highly pathogenic avian influenza, rabies and leptospirosis, and food-borne zoonotic diseases (brucellosis, salmonellosis).
- Assess food insecurity in 2023 at national and subnational levels in 50 countries vulnerable to the effect of the Ukraine–Russia crisis.
- Facilitate efficient use of fertilizers:
  - Proposal to use soil-nutrient maps to provide detailed soil-profile and spatial-distribution information to promote precise inputs in quantity, space, and time.
- Provide fair, transparent, and impartial information on agricultural food and fertilizer markets and related policy changes through FAO analysis, a website, and international platforms (for example, the Agricultural Market Information System, AMIS).
- Promote the implementation of new or improved policies:
  - Establish a food import financing facility (FIFF) to help poor net food-importing countries access international food markets; FAO notes IMF’s approval of a Food Shock Window is in line with the FIFF proposed by FAO.
  - Strengthen social protection for food security and nutrition across affected countries through gender-sensitive measures.
  - Reduce food loss and waste: high amounts of food loss and waste could feed about 1.26 billion people per year.

### The UN World Food Programme — Recent scale-up and challenges
- 2022 achievements and scale:
  - Reached an estimated 158 million people with food, cash, and commodity vouchers in 2022 (compared with 128 million people reached in 2021).
  - Procured 4.2 million metric tons of food, valued at $3.3 billion.
  - 51 percent of procurement was local or regional, injecting $1.62 billion into local economies.
  - More than $80 million (or 2.5 percent of the tonnage) procured from smallholder farmers in 25 countries.
  - Technical and policy support influenced quality of life, access to education, and nutrition status of 155 million schoolchildren in 74 countries.
  - Cash-based transfers: disbursed $3.3 billion in 72 countries in 2022, an increase of 42 percent compared with 2021.
- 2023 needs and financing gap:
  - Expected number of people projected to need food assistance in 2023: 345.2 million.
  - WFP projected operational requirements for 2023: $23.1 billion.
  - WFP funding forecast for 2023: $11 billion (indicating less than 50 percent of requirements will be funded).
- Monitoring tools:
  - HungerMap LIVE helps assess, monitor, and predict hunger in near real time in 89 countries.

### The World Bank Group — Financing, tools, and coordination
- Financing and disbursements:
  - WBG’s food and nutrition security (FNS) commitments delivered to date: almost $16 billion.
    - Short-term response: $8.8 billion.
    - Long-term resilience response: $7.2 billion.
  - Disbursements from World Bank’s new lending: $2.6 billion (21 percent of the commitment amounts).
  - Portfolio disbursed since April 2022: $5.3 billion.
  - Geographic and beneficiary coverage: more than 40 percent cover Africa; more than 30 percent cover fragile, conflict-, and violence-affected countries.
  - Interventions expected to strengthen FNS of more than 296 million beneficiaries in the coming years; almost half live in fragile, conflict- and violence-affected contexts; half are women.
- Crisis Response Window Early Response Financing:
  - 20 countries have received nearly $750 million in allocations.
- Coordination and platforms:
  - May 2022: WBG and the G7 Presidency convened the Global Alliance for Food Security.
  - World Bank led a joint effort with FAO, IMF, WFP, and WTO to discuss food security and develop coordinated responses; three joint statements have been issued.
- Key initiatives and tools:
  - Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard:
    - Launched on November 9, 2022.
  - Food Security Crisis Preparedness Plans (FSCPPs):
    - National operational plans defining major FNS crisis triggers and mobilization protocols.

### Selected IMF-related program and emergency support figures
- Recent New Upper Credit Tranche–Quality Programs and Augmentations (selected entries):
  - Sri Lanka (March 2023): Commitments (US$ millions) 3,062.7; Disbursements (US$ millions) 340.3.
  - Bangladesh (January 2023): Commitments (US$ millions) 4,688.5; Disbursements (US$ millions) 476.3.
  - Mauritania (January 2023): Commitments (US$ millions) 86.9; Disbursements (US$ millions) 21.7.
  - Kenya (December 2022): Commitments (US$ millions) 216.5; Disbursements (US$ millions) 216.5.
  - Pakistan (September 2022): Commitments (US$ millions) 936.1; Disbursements (US$ millions) 269.5.
  - Zambia (August 2022): Commitments (US$ millions) 1,272.9; Disbursements (US$ millions) 182.0.
  - Benin (July 2022): Commitments (US$ millions) 637.5; Disbursements (US$ millions) 288.9.
  - Cabo Verde (June 2022): Commitments (US$ millions) 60.0; Disbursements (US$ millions) 30.4.
  - Mozambique (May 2022): Commitments (US$ millions) 455.8; Disbursements (US$ millions) 148.1.
  - Total (US$ billions): Commitments 11.4; Disbursements 2.0.
- IMF Emergency Lending Support through the Food Shock Window (selected entry):
  - Burkina Faso (March 2023): Disbursements (US$ millions) 80.9.
  - Table summary — Emergency Financing total — SDR 1,357 — USD 1,759 — Disbursed SDR 1,357 — USD 1,759.
  - Total (all lending) — SDR 9,907 — USD 13,176 — Access Committed 2,842 — Disbursed 3,732.

### South Sudan — scope, IMF disbursement, and intended uses
- About two-thirds of South Sudan’s population is experiencing severe food insecurity, the highest level since the country’s independence.
- Primary contributing factors:
  - severe multiyear floods due to climate shocks,
  - intercommunal violence in parts of the country,
  - impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine contributing to high global food and fuel prices.
- IMF disbursement and intended uses for South Sudan:
  - The disbursement designated for budget support will enable the authorities to avoid a premature fiscal contraction.
  - Immediate allocations from the disbursement:
    - $15 million to the World Food Programme (WFP) to bolster humanitarian operations and help address food insecurity in South Sudan during 2023.
    - $5 million to the International Organization for Migration to bolster humanitarian operations and help address food insecurity in South Sudan during 2023.
  - The remainder of the disbursement will be used predominantly to finance education spending.

### Other country cases and IMF Emergency Financing through the Food Shock Window
- Haiti (January 2023)
  - In September 2022, food inflation reached 44 percent, with rice inflation accelerating to nearly 70 percent.
  - Food Shock Window support will help address urgent balance-of-payment needs attributable to acute food insecurity and higher food import costs.
  - Emergency financing will support budgeted measures including increasing cash transfers and food rations for poor households, beginning school feeding programs and providing hot meals for vulnerable households and community restaurants, and waiving school fees.
- Guinea (December 2022)
  - The WFP estimates that 11 percent of the population, or 1.2 million people, are affected by acute food insecurity.
  - Planned use of resources:
    - About 30 percent for direct in-kind food distribution, managed by the WFP.
    - About 40 percent for cash transfers.
    - The rest to help import fertilizers.
- Malawi (November 2022)
  - About 20 percent of the population is projected to be acutely food insecure during the upcoming 2022–23 lean season (October 2022–March 2023), more than twice as many as in 2021.
  - Emergency financing will help address urgent balance-of-payment needs and mitigate the food shock, including by strengthening cash transfer programs for vulnerable households.
- Ukraine (October 2022)
  - The Ukrainian authorities requested financial assistance under the new Food Shock Window of the Rapid Financing Instrument in the context of persistent urgent balance-of-payment needs, including due to a large shortfall in cereal exports.
  - The disbursement under the Rapid Financial Instrument has provided critical support to mitigate the serious consequences of this shock to the export base and has played a catalytic role for financing from other partners to close the external financing gap.

*Prepared by Ervin Prifti (RES). Source: insea2023002 — Box 1 and Box 2; selected country cases and IMF engagement (IMF staff analysis and figures).*

### Box 1. Are We Out of the Storm Yet? Global Food Price Drivers and Transmission to

### Box 1. Are We Out of the Storm Yet? Global Food Price Drivers and Transmission to Domestic Food Inflation

### Global food price dynamics and key drivers
- The IMF food price index rose by 54 percent between March 2020 (trough) and May 2022 (peak).
- Recent surge in international food prices is notable in amplitude, duration, and intensity compared with 2008 and 2012 crises.
- Four historically important drivers analyzed for cereals: harvest shocks, fertilizer prices, oil prices, and monetary policy.

Key quantitative findings from impulse responses (cereals):
- A typical (negative) global harvest shock of 1.9 percent induces an average 16 percent rise in cereal prices in the same quarter, peaking at 23 percent after three months.
- An oil supply shock that raises oil prices by 10 percent increases cereal prices by about 2 percent after three to four quarters.
- A 10 percent rise in fertilizer prices (due to a natural gas supply shock) has no immediate effects but leads to a 7 percent rise in cereal prices after one quarter.
- A 100-basis point US monetary policy shock reduces cereal prices by about 13 percent with a one-quarter lag.

Recent developments shaping near-term outlook:
- Energy and fertilizer prices have recently decreased, although fertilizer prices remain elevated by historical standards.
- Cereal supply is projected to pick up slightly in the 2023–24 season from the prior low level, but not enough to keep up with consumption, leading to a drawdown in stocks and upward price pressure (International Grain Council projection referenced).
- Futures curves point to a reduction of only 5.6 percent of food prices in 2023 from current high levels.
- Estimated contribution of higher international food prices to global average consumer food inflation in 2022: 6 percentage points.

### Transmission to domestic food inflation
- Average pass-through from international to domestic consumer food prices: around 25 percent.
- Considerable country-level heterogeneity in pass-through intensity and lag:
  - Consumers in emerging markets and LICs typically experience higher and faster price increases due to higher dependency on food imports and weaker currencies (examples: sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa).
  - Typical impact lag for global food price changes to be fully reflected in domestic food inflation: 6 to 12 months on average.

### Risks and outlook
- Global food supplies projected to drop to a three-year low in 2022–23 under a baseline scenario; some commodity markets crucial to food security face significant downside risks.
- Uncertainty about the path for global food prices in the short term remains exceptionally high.
- Rice prices: increased 17 percent since February 2022 and 9 percent in January 2023, linked to climate shock–induced poor harvests and high input costs.
- Duration and renewal uncertainty of the Black Sea Corridor Initiative noted (renewal on March 17, 2023 highlighted as welcome but its duration remains unclear).
- Low-income countries (LICs) face disproportionate harm due to weak growth prospects, large fiscal and external deficits, elevated debt levels, low reserve buffers, and high borrowing costs; 60 percent of LICs are at high risk of or in debt distress.

### Policy recommendations and priorities
- Immediate priorities to prevent worsening food insecurity and malnutrition:
  - Protect the most vulnerable households by providing timely and targeted support through effective social safety nets.
  - Maintain open trade and avoid distortive measures such as food export restrictions.
  - Foster food production and make it more climate resilient.

- Guidance on social support:
  - Countries relying on broad-based subsidies should consider gradual phasing out and shifting toward more targeted mechanisms, calibrated by the gap between domestic retail and international prices, available fiscal space, and feasibility of targeted safety nets.

- Trade-related actions:
  - Unwind barriers to trade, including export and import restrictions.
  - Avoid trade-distortive subsidies.
  - Address supply bottlenecks.
  - Increase transparency of trade-restricting measures through WTO notifications.
  - Preserve global market access for Ukraine’s food exports.

- Measures to support food production and supply:
  - Facilitate access to fertilizers and crop diversification to ensure availability and affordability.
  - Improve and increase arable fields, support development and distribution of high-quality seeds, and promote knowledge sharing of best farming practices.
  - Address logistical constraints and infrastructure gaps to reduce transport costs.
  - Enhance production and trade financing; support microfinancing, capacity development, public–private partnerships with governance frameworks, and attract impact investment.

- Climate-resilient agriculture strategy (multipronged; mindful of limited fiscal space):
  - Invest in new crop varieties, improve water management, and strengthen information dissemination for farmers.
  - Enhance access to finance and digitalization to support adaptation and private investment.
  - Advance property rights and extend telecommunications infrastructure to enable mobile banking and access to early warning systems and weather information.

### IMF response and financing actions
- IMF engagement: policy advice, capacity development, and financial support, coordinated with World Bank, WTO, WFP, FAO and other IOs.
- Financial support modalities emphasized:
  - Upper Credit Tranche (UCT)–quality programs for longer-term support and macroeconomic policy adjustment.
  - Food Shock Window (FSW) under the emergency financing toolkit for low-access emergency financing where UCT-quality programs are infeasible.

Quantitative financial support and approvals:
- Since February 2022, IMF committed an additional $11.4 billion (SDR 8.6 billion) to countries particularly affected by the global food crisis; $2 billion (SDR 1.5 billion) disbursed as of March 2023 (through new UCT-quality arrangements or augmentations for nine countries).
- As of March 2023, six requests for financing under the new FSW approved; total FSW support reached $1.8 billion (SDR 1.4 billion).
- Examples of FSW approvals with access share noted:
  - Ukraine: access of SDR 1,006 million, 50 percent of quota.
  - Malawi: SDR 69.4 million, 50 percent of quota.
  - Guinea: SDR 53.6 million, 25 percent of quota.
  - Haiti: SDR 81.9 million, 50 percent of quota.
  - South Sudan: SDR 86.1 million, 35 percent of quota.
  - Burkina Faso: SDR 60.2 million, 50 percent of quota.

- Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST): supports efforts to build resilience to longer-term challenges such as climate change, addressing chronic food insecurity in many LICs.

- Coordination and operational collaboration:
  - IMF staff working with other IOs to jointly assess outlooks and exchange policy experience.
  - Examples of operational collaboration: WFP channeling FSW-provided funds for in-kind food distribution in Guinea; FSW for South Sudan envisages channeling part of support through WFP.

*Prepared by Ervin Prifti (RES). Source: insea2023002 — Box 1 (IMF staff analysis and figures).*

### Box 2. Recent Activities of the Food and Agriculture Organization, World Food

### Box 2. Recent Activities of the Food and Agriculture Organization, World Food Programme, and World Bank Group to Combat the Global Food Crisis

### Food and Agriculture Organization — Immediate and ongoing actions
- Rapid response plan for Ukraine (2023) organized around three pillars:
  - Pillar 1: restoring food security and self-sufficiency in front-line communities for half a million rural households.
  - Pillar 2: restoring critical agricultural production and value chains by providing diesel and gas generators, seeds for wheat, barley, oats, and peas, temporary and fixed modular storage units, and other needs.
  - Pillar 3: enhancing coordination and technical support to functioning critical food system services by supporting testing and certification for alternative grain export routes, restoring veterinary services, partnering with specialized organizations to facilitate the removal of explosive hazards from agricultural lands, and conducting damage and loss assessments.
  - Funding required for the three pillars: $205 million.
- Assess investment needs in Ukraine’s agricultural reconstruction and recovery and work with international financial institutions:
  - War-induced damage to the agriculture sector in Ukraine estimated at $2.2 billion (excluding irrigation and water, forestry, and fisheries).
  - Aggregate losses totaling $28.3 billion (as of June 1, 2022).
  - Total reconstruction and recovery needs from the public sector estimated at $18.7 billion over a 10-year period.
- Address animal health:
  - Disruptions to animal health services, surveillance, and control causing delayed recognition and response to important animal diseases.
  - Key disease risks: African swine fever, highly pathogenic avian influenza, rabies and leptospirosis, and food-borne zoonotic diseases (brucellosis, salmonellosis).
  - Initiative aims for coordinated, targeted, and risk-based control measures across Ukraine and neighboring countries.
- Assess food insecurity in 2023 at national and subnational levels in 50 countries vulnerable to the effect of the Ukraine–Russia crisis.
- Facilitate efficient use of fertilizers:
  - Proposal to use soil-nutrient maps to provide detailed soil-profile and spatial-distribution information to promote precise inputs in quantity, space, and time.
- Provide fair, transparent, and impartial information on agricultural food and fertilizer markets and related policy changes through FAO analysis, a website, and international platforms (for example, the Agricultural Market Information System, AMIS).
- Promote the implementation of new or improved policies:
  - Establish a food import financing facility (FIFF) to help poor net food-importing countries access international food markets; FAO notes IMF’s approval of a Food Shock Window is in line with the FIFF proposed by FAO.
  - Strengthen social protection for food security and nutrition across affected countries through gender-sensitive measures geared toward:
    1. enhancing the capacity of Ukraine’s social protection system to respond to the crisis and help rebuild rural and agricultural livelihoods after the war;
    2. strengthening social protection systems in neighboring host countries to cater to refugee needs and support socioeconomic integration in host communities, in coordination with agricultural sector actors;
    3. responding to increases in food and fertilizer prices in net food-importing countries and the reduction of remittances in Central Asia.
  - Reduce food loss and waste: high amounts of food loss and waste could feed about 1.26 billion people per year.

### The UN World Food Programme — Recent scale-up and challenges
- 2022 achievements and scale:
  - Reached an estimated 158 million people with food, cash, and commodity vouchers in 2022 (compared with 128 million people reached in 2021).
  - Procured 4.2 million metric tons of food, valued at $3.3 billion.
  - 51 percent of procurement was local or regional, injecting $1.62 billion into local economies.
  - More than $80 million (or 2.5 percent of the tonnage) procured from smallholder farmers in 25 countries.
  - Technical and policy support influenced quality of life, access to education, and nutrition status of 155 million schoolchildren in 74 countries, including through strengthened home-grown school feeding programs.
  - Cash-based transfers: disbursed $3.3 billion in 72 countries in 2022, an increase of 42 percent compared with 2021.
- 2023 needs and financing gap:
  - Expected number of people projected to need food assistance in 2023: 345.2 million.
  - WFP projected operational requirements for 2023: $23.1 billion.
  - WFP funding forecast for 2023: $11 billion (indicating less than 50 percent of requirements will be funded).
- Monitoring tools:
  - HungerMap LIVE helps assess, monitor, and predict hunger in near real time in 89 countries.

### The World Bank Group — Financing, tools, and coordination
- Financing and disbursements:
  - WBG’s food and nutrition security (FNS) commitments delivered to date: almost $16 billion.
    - Short-term response: $8.8 billion.
    - Long-term resilience response: $7.2 billion.
  - Disbursements from World Bank’s new lending: $2.6 billion (21 percent of the commitment amounts).
  - Portfolio disbursed since April 2022: $5.3 billion.
  - Geographic and beneficiary coverage: more than 40 percent cover Africa; more than 30 percent cover fragile, conflict-, and violence-affected countries.
  - Interventions expected to strengthen FNS of more than 296 million beneficiaries in the coming years; almost half live in fragile, conflict- and violence-affected contexts; half are women.
- Crisis Response Window Early Response Financing:
  - 20 countries have received nearly $750 million in allocations.
  - Eligibility based on evidence and prespecified quantitative thresholds using Integrated Phase Classification–compatible data and other locally available food and nutrition security data.
- Coordination and platforms:
  - May 2022: WBG and the G7 Presidency convened the Global Alliance for Food Security to catalyze an immediate and concerted response.
  - World Bank led a joint effort with FAO, IMF, WFP, and WTO to discuss food security and develop coordinated responses; three joint statements have been issued on urgent actions required.
- Key initiatives and tools:
  - Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard:
    - Launched on November 9, 2022.
    - Publicly accessible platform consolidating global and country-level information on food crisis severity, global food security financing, and innovative research to strengthen crisis response and resilience.
    - Being refined and expanded with additional data, information, and indicators relevant to the FNS crisis response and sustainable agricultural production.
  - Food Security Crisis Preparedness Plans (FSCPPs):
    - National operational plans defining what constitutes a major FNS crisis, detailing monitoring, step-by-step protocols, roles, and timelines for mobilizing funding and early action.
    - Government-led and -owned where possible and designed to incorporate humanitarian and development partner contributions to development and operationalization.

### Selected IMF-related program and emergency support figures (from tables)
- Table 1 — Recent New Upper Credit Tranche–Quality Programs and Augmentations for Countries Facing Acute Food Insecurity (selected entries):
  - Sri Lanka (March 2023): Commitments (US$ millions) 3,062.7; Disbursements (US$ millions) 340.3.
  - Bangladesh (January 2023): Commitments (US$ millions) 4,688.5; Disbursements (US$ millions) 476.3.
  - Mauritania (January 2023): Commitments (US$ millions) 86.9; Disbursements (US$ millions) 21.7.
  - Kenya (December 2022): Commitments (US$ millions) 216.5; Disbursements (US$ millions) 216.5.
  - Pakistan (September 2022): Commitments (US$ millions) 936.1; Disbursements (US$ millions) 269.5.
  - Zambia (August 2022): Commitments (US$ millions) 1,272.9; Disbursements (US$ millions) 182.0.
  - Benin (July 2022): Commitments (US$ millions) 637.5; Disbursements (US$ millions) 288.9.
  - Cabo Verde (June 2022): Commitments (US$ millions) 60.0; Disbursements (US$ millions) 30.4.
  - Mozambique (May 2022): Commitments (US$ millions) 455.8; Disbursements (US$ millions) 148.1.
  - Total (US$ billions): Commitments 11.4; Disbursements 2.0.
- Table 2 — IMF Emergency Lending Support through the Food Shock Window (selected entry):
  - Burkina Faso (March 2023): Disbursements (US$ millions) 80.9.
    - Context and commitments: about 3.4 million Burkinabé (out of a population of 21.5 million) are in conditions of food crisis. Authorities committed to use disbursed resources to provide urgent financial and direct food support to the most vulnerable households (well-targeted cash transfers, distribution of free food, sales of cereals at subsidized prices), improve clean water supply and distribution, sell key agricultural inputs such as fertilizers at subsidized prices, and gradually lift temporary food-related export restrictions.

*Source: insea2023002 - Box 2. Recent Activities of the Food and Agriculture Organization, World Food Programme, and World Bank Group to Combat the Global Food Crisis.*

### 113.8 About two-thirds of South Sudan’s population is experiencing severe food

### insea2023002 - 113.8 About two-thirds of South Sudan’s population is experiencing severe food

### South Sudan — scope and drivers of the crisis
- About two-thirds of South Sudan’s population is experiencing severe food insecurity, the highest level since the country’s independence.
- Primary contributing factors:
  - severe multiyear floods due to climate shocks,
  - intercommunal violence in parts of the country,
  - impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine contributing to high global food and fuel prices.

### IMF disbursement and intended uses for South Sudan
- The disbursement designated for budget support will enable the authorities to avoid a premature fiscal contraction.
- Immediate allocations from the disbursement:
  - $15 million to the World Food Programme (WFP) to bolster humanitarian operations and help address food insecurity in South Sudan during 2023.
  - $5 million to the International Organization for Migration to bolster humanitarian operations and help address food insecurity in South Sudan during 2023.
- The remainder of the disbursement will be used predominantly to finance education spending.

### Other country cases and IMF Emergency Financing through the Food Shock Window
- Haiti (January 2023)
  - In September 2022, food inflation reached 44 percent, with rice inflation accelerating to nearly 70 percent.
  - More than half of the population already below the poverty line; described as a dire humanitarian crisis.
  - Food Shock Window support will help address urgent balance-of-payment needs attributable to acute food insecurity and higher food import costs.
  - Emergency financing will support budgeted measures including increasing cash transfers and food rations for poor households, beginning school feeding programs and providing hot meals for vulnerable households and community restaurants, and waiving school fees.
- Guinea (December 2022)
  - The WFP estimates that 11 percent of the population, or 1.2 million people, are affected by acute food insecurity.
  - Emergency financing support will help address urgent balance-of-payment needs and mitigate the food shock.
  - Planned use of resources:
    - About 30 percent for direct in-kind food distribution, managed by the WFP.
    - About 40 percent for cash transfers.
    - The rest to help import fertilizers.
- Malawi (November 2022)
  - Food insecurity increased due to multiple tropical storms, below-average crop production, and rising prices for food and agricultural inputs such as fertilizer and seeds.
  - About 20 percent of the population is projected to be acutely food insecure during the upcoming 2022–23 lean season (October 2022–March 2023), more than twice as many as in 2021.
  - Emergency financing will help address urgent balance-of-payment needs and mitigate the food shock, including by strengthening cash transfer programs for vulnerable households.
- Ukraine (October 2022)
  - 1,290.1 The Ukrainian authorities requested financial assistance under the new Food Shock Window of the Rapid Financing Instrument in the context of persistent urgent balance-of-payment needs, including due to a large shortfall in cereal exports.
  - The disbursement under the Rapid Financial Instrument has provided critical support to mitigate the serious consequences of this shock to the export base and has played a catalytic role for financing from other partners to close the external financing gap.

### Table summary — IMF lending to countries facing acute food insecurity (select figures preserved)
- Total (US$ billions)      1.8
- Emergency Financing through the Food Shock Window (table entries)
  - Ukraine — RFI — USD (millions) 1,290 — Access 50 percent — Disbursed 1,006 (SDR millions) 1,006
  - Malawi — RCF — USD (millions) 91 — Access 50 percent — Disbursed 69 (SDR millions) 69
  - Guinea — RCF — USD (millions) 71 — Access 25 percent — Disbursed 54 (SDR millions) 54
  - Haiti — RCF — USD (millions) 111 — Access 50 percent — Disbursed 82 (SDR millions) 82
  - South Sudan — RCF — USD (millions) 115 — Access 35 percent — Disbursed 86 (SDR millions) 86
  - Burkina Faso — RCF — USD (millions) 81 — Access 50 percent — Disbursed 60 (SDR millions) 60
  - Emergency Financing total — SDR 1,357 — USD 1,759 — Disbursed SDR 1,357 — USD 1,759
- Total (all lending) — SDR 9,907 — USD 13,176 — Access Committed 2,842 — Disbursed 3,732

### Key programmatic roles and policy focus
- IMF emergency financing under the Food Shock Window and related facilities aims to:
  - address urgent balance-of-payment needs attributable to acute food insecurity and higher food import costs,
  - provide immediate budget support to avoid premature fiscal contractions,
  - finance humanitarian operations via multilateral partners (e.g., WFP, IOM),
  - support social protection measures such as cash transfers, food rations, school feeding programs, and waiving school fees,
  - finance sectoral spending priorities such as education and agricultural inputs (e.g., fertilizer imports).

*International Monetary Fund, Global Food Crisis Update—Recent Developments, Outlook, and IMF Engagement NOTE/2023/002*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/imf-notes/2023/english/insea2023002.pdf_