This chapter reviews the causes and effects of the food price crisis and the global financial and economic crises, particularly as they affected the food security status of the poor. The origins of the crises are shown to be numerous and complex, as were the consequences for the poor, most of whom are net food buyers and thus for whom the income to purchase food - which, in turn, is critically dependent on employment and wages - is an essential part of the food security equation. The chapter also reviews the impacts of the global economic crisis in terms of the main transmission channels that affected developing countries. It highlights the many different coping strategies used by the poor to deal with food price increases and economic crisis. However, it is concluded that the use of these strategies did not avert severe impacts of the crises on the poor and on rates of poverty and undernourishment, reversing at least temporarily, progress made earlier in the decade in reducing global poverty and hunger. This chapter highlights a number of short- and long-term strategies for mitigating the impacts of future such crises on the poor.
This chapter synthesizes the main findings of the chapters in this volume, which have reviewed at length the causes of the food and financial crises, both structural and transitory, and their impacts across sub-Saharan Africa, both at the aggregate level and for individual countries, regions and sub-national areas. The objective of this summary chapter is 2-fold: first, to synthesize the 'lessons learned' regarding the food and financial crises, both as related in this volume and from other evidence, and second, to present a consensus policy agenda that may help in mitigating the effects of future food and economic crises in sub-Saharan Africa or enhance the likelihood of avoiding them to begin with.
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