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This study aims to explore the interrelationships among quality and safety metrics within the Global Food Security Index (GFSI). Its primary objective is to identify key indicators and their respective influences on food security outcomes, thereby enriching comprehension of the intricate dynamics within global food security.

The analysis encompasses data from 113 countries for the year 2022, utilizing Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) models to identify significant drivers of both the GFSI and quality and safety dimensions. This methodological approach enables the examination of probabilistic connections among different indicators, providing a structured framework for investigating the complex dynamics of food security.

The study highlights the critical role of regulatory frameworks, access to clean drinking water, and food safety mechanisms in fostering food security. Key findings reveal that “nutrition monitoring and surveillance” has the highest probability (75%) of achieving a high-performance state, whereas “national dietary guidelines” have the highest probability (41%) of achieving a low-performance state. High GFSI performance is associated with excelling in indicators such as “access to drinking water” and “food safety mechanisms”, while low performance is linked to underperformance in “national dietary guidelines” and “nutrition labeling”. “Protein quality” and “dietary diversity” are identified as the most critical indicators affecting both the GFSI and quality and safety dimensions.

This research operationalizes a probabilistic technique to analyze the interdependencies among quality and safety indicators within the GFSI. By uncovering the probabilistic connections between these indicators, the study enhances understanding of the underlying dynamics that influence food security outcomes. The findings highlight the critical roles of regulatory frameworks, access to clean drinking water, and food safety mechanisms, offering actionable insights that empower policymakers to make evidence-based decisions and allocate resources effectively. Ultimately, this research significantly contributes to the advancement of food security interventions and the achievement of sustainable development goals related to food quality and safety.

This study aims to assess the effects of natural disasters on food security in a sample of 40 sub-Saharan African countries. First, the authors assess the effects of natural disasters on the four dimensions of food security and second, the authors disaggregate natural disaster using the two dimensions that are most representative, namely, hydrological and biological disasters.

The regressions are based on the generalised method of moments on a data set covering the period 2005–2020. Natural disasters are measured by the total number of people affected and food security by its characteristics: access, availability, use and sustainability.

The results show that natural disasters increase the prevalence of undernourishment but reduce dependence on cereal imports. An increase in natural disasters by 1% increases the prevalence of undernourishment by the same proportion. As for import dependency, a 1% increase in natural disasters reduces dependency by 2.2%. The disaggregated effects show that hydrological disasters are more significant than biological disasters in impacting food security. Floods reduce the average energy supply adequacy but also dependence on cereal imports. Policy implications are discussed.

The study complements the extant literature by assessing the effects of natural disasters on food security in a region where food insecurity is one of the worst in the world.

The aim of the quantity study is to investigate the cost of living and food security nexus in Ghana. Time series secondary quarterly data from 2012Q1 to 2018Q4 were examined.

The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) to cointegration bound test was employed for the econometrics analysis. Time series secondary quarterly data from 2012Q1 to 2018Q4 were examined. Food security data based on the Global Food Security Index score were employed.

The result revealed that the variables are cointegrated in the long run. The study also revealed that the cost of living worsens food security in Ghana both in the short run and the long run. This could imply that people may not have enough money to afford adequate and nutritious food, which can lead to food insecurity. As the cost of living increases, people may have to spend more of their income on basic necessities such as housing, healthcare and transportation, leaving less money for food. This can result in people choosing cheaper and less nutritious options, or even skipping meals, which can have negative impacts on their health and well-being.

For policy implications, it is recommended that effort should be made by the Ministry of Finance Ghana, financial analysts and other economic agents to stabilize prices of goods and services in the country.

The study is among the few to have investigated the nexus between the cost of living and food security in non-Western economy using the secondary data.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-04-2023-0309

Food security reflects the amount of access and availability of healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food and represents a significant problem both nationally and globally. Individuals and families that are considered food insecure experience disparities and inequities in food access and availability and insufficiency in the amount and kind of food required for a healthy lifestyle. We see high food insecurity as a violation of one's rights to a healthy and secure life and a denial of the opportunity for individuals, families, and communities to realize their full potential in society. Thus, we examine food insecurity from three distinct but related perspectives: social responsibility, social justice, and social sustainability. We then explore the link between food insecurity and the “built environment” as needed to shape research, practice, and sustainable solutions in the future.

Drawing on initiatives held in various countries, the chapter advocates for a multi-stakeholder approach in making decisions related to food systems. By prioritizing local perspectives, diverse stakeholder participation, and equitable decision-making, this approach ensures policies that are responsive to unique contexts, thus contributing to sustainable and culturally sensitive development. Within these forums, local communities share traditional knowledge and expertise, influencing policy formulation that respects social specifics. Importantly, direct engagement of communities in land use, resource management, and agricultural practices helps preserve territorial identities. The chapter also discusses historical examples where development policies, such as the “green revolution,” disregarded traditional practices and local identity in favor of Western agricultural models. This resulted in negative consequences, including the loss of biodiversity, environmental degradation, and economic vulnerability among small farmers.

Realities of food insecurity are more pronounced with a specific focus on women in developing countries. The need to understand the varied food insecurity experiences among female-headed agricultural households in such contexts provided the rationale and motivation for this study.

The study employed a quantitative cross-sectional approach, drawing on the binary logistic regression to determine the influence of socioeconomic status on household coping mechanisms in response to food insecurity in a stratified random sample of 509 female-headed agricultural households in Liberia.

The results revealed that most respondents experienced food insecurity reflected in inadequate food availability, an inability to eat nutritious food and the necessity to skip meals. In response, they employed coping strategies such as borrowing money, selling assets, and reducing health expenses, which were influenced by socioeconomic characteristics such as gender, education, and marital status.

The study illustrates the multi-layered and complex context of food insecurity among women. From these findings, the study proposes the consideration of such dynamics to inform practical and relevant mitigatory policy approaches to the target demographic.

With food insecurity being a social problem, the study identifies its social impact by documenting the participants' lived experiences. Thus, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of food insecurity across different segments of society.

The study draws its originality from understanding how food insecurity impacts female-headed households, highlighting the often-ignored gender dynamics of food insecurity in developing nations and aggregating the coping strategies and food insecurity expenses.

The COVID-19 epidemic caused significant disruptions to numerous supply chains. In order to enhance the resilience of supply chains, Collaboration (CO), Information Alignment (IA), and Big Data Analytics Capability (BDAC) have emerged as contemporary strategies within the humanitarian context. This study was conducted to explore the mechanism via which the effect of BDAC, IA and CO on Humanitarian Supply Chain Resilience (HSCR) in the humanitarian space could be optimized through Organizational Flexibility (OF).

A model of six hypotheses was developed based on the Organizational Information Processing Theory (OIPT). Data from 127 supply chain managers in humanitarian organizations were used to test the hypotheses. The analysis employed both descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS version 26 and Smart-PLS version 3.

The study revealed that BDAC, IA, and CO individually influence supply chain resilience in the humanitarian setting while OF did not moderate the relationship between BDAC, IA, CO, and HSCR.

It is essential that humanitarian stakeholders prioritize factors that could increase supply chain resilience by employing contemporary BDA technologies, effective information flow, and collaborative strategies to set up a robust humanitarian SC system that could help lessen the impact of disasters.

This presents interesting insights that advance theoretical debates on how CO, IA, and BDAC under varying levels of OF could influence SCR in the humanitarian context. The paper further offers some useful guidance to managers in relief organizations who desire to build resilient supply chains by leveraging BDAC, collaboration and information alignment. Finally, the paper may also provoke future humanitarian scholars to replicate the study using different approaches.

Attaining the Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2) of zero hunger continues to be a challenge in most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. However, financial inclusion is seen as a potential pathway for reducing food insecurity among poor households. Mobile money is a financial inclusion instrument that is easily accessible to poor households and has the potential to increase the level of financial inclusion. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the determinants of mobile money adoption, its effects on household food security and the choice of coping strategies in Burundi, a post-conflict and fragile country.

Using survey data that involved 860 households in Burundi, we adopted the Household Hunger Scale (HHS) developed under the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance Project to measure household food security. We further employ the endogenous switching regression treatment effects model for ordered outcomes and the multivariate probit model to achieve our aims.

The results of our study reveal that the adoption of mobile money is influenced by factors such as gender, marital status, age, formal education, membership in a social network, area of residence and access to a tarred road network. Additionally, the food security status of a household was determined by marital status, formal education, social network membership, access to tarred roads, off-farm income, access to credit and land tenure security. We confirm that mobile money adoption has a significantly positive effect on the food security status of households with heterogeneity in gender and area of residence. We also find that mobile money adoption reduces the likelihood of households adopting consumption-related coping strategies.

The promotion of mobile money should, therefore, be included in Burundi’s national food security policies.

This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the effect of mobile money adoption on household food security and the choice of coping strategies in a post-conflict context.

This study investigates the impact of board funds, banking credit, and economic development on food production in the context of South Asian economies (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal).

This study used data from the World Development Indicators covering the years 1991–2019. To investigate the relationship between the variables of the study, we employed the panel unit root test, panel cointegration test, cross-sectional dependence test, fully modified least squares (FMOLS), and panel dynamic least squares (DOLS) estimators.

The empirical results indicate that board funding significantly increase food production; however, banking credit had a negative impact. Furthermore, the findings indicate that economic development, Arable land, fertilizer consumption, and agricultural employment play a leading role in enhancing food production. The results of the Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test also show substantiated the significance of the causal relationship among all variables.

South Asian countries should prioritize board funding, bank credit, and economic development in their long-term strategies. Ensuring financial access for farmers through micro-credit and public bank initiatives can spur agricultural productivity and economic growth.

This study is the first to combine board funding, banking credit, and economic development to better comprehend their potential impact on food production. Instead of using traditional approaches, this study focuses on these financial and developmental aspects as critical determinants for increasing food production, using evidence from South Asia.